Altruism and Cynicism
173 aphorisms · 15 comments
Aphorisms in This Category
21–40 (174)
tiny.ag/5otyux70 · submitted 1997
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.
tiny.ag/otpgz4zj · submitted 1997
A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
tiny.ag/r6bo5aic · submitted 1998 by Mark van Essen
Black, white, brown, yellow or even red, we piss with our pants down, and go naked to bed.
tiny.ag/7do2rifh · submitted 1997
The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.
Mark Twain, What is Man?, 1906, in Altruism and Cynicism
tiny.ag/ne1vhxlr · submitted 1997
Never tell the truth to those unworthy of it.
tiny.ag/gymh6otw · submitted 1997
Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to.
tiny.ag/sdmeheo7 · submitted 1997
I am prepared to meet anyone, but whether anyone is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
tiny.ag/q6kxew3z · submitted 1997
Good breeding consists of concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
tiny.ag/dxokyfu8 · submitted 1997
It's better to be quotable than to be honest.
tiny.ag/vinogpxg · submitted 1997
A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you.
tiny.ag/kdbyxotm · submitted 1997
Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
tiny.ag/dtxsg5kf · submitted 1997
A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is statistics.
tiny.ag/0ihiksxu · submitted 1997
On Monday mornings I am dedicated to the proposition that all men are created jerks.
H. Allen Smith, Let the Crabgrass Grow, in Altruism and Cynicism
tiny.ag/asecpbyl · submitted 1997
A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern.
tiny.ag/lkgjcwse · submitted 1997
Baloney is flattery so thick that it can not be true and blarney is flattery so thin that we like it.
tiny.ag/9m1hmtxp · submitted 1997
When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him, it's called ferocity.
tiny.ag/q93dw7gi · submitted 1997
Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.
tiny.ag/vgoawlvx · submitted 1997
How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.
tiny.ag/lvmeyokh · submitted 1997
Though I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance.
tiny.ag/euochyxn · submitted 1997
The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.
Daniel Schorr, in Altruism and Cynicism and Success and Failure
21–40 (174)