Altruism and Cynicism

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

Mother Teresa, in Altruism and Cynicism

I never know how much of what I say is true.

Bette Midler, in Altruism and Cynicism

There's always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism and Science and Religion

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

Demagogue: One who preaches a doctrine he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.

Marshall McLuhan, in Altruism and Cynicism

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.

Frank Herbert, Dune, in Altruism and Cynicism

Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if you run out of food.

Dean McLaughlin, in Altruism and Cynicism

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

Lillian Hellman, in Altruism and Cynicism

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Robert J. Hanlon, in Altruism and Cynicism and Vice and Virtue

No good deed goes unpunished.

Clare Boothe Luce, in Altruism and Cynicism

One nice thing about egotists is that they don't talk about other people.

Lucille S. Harper, in Altruism and Cynicism

A learned County Court judge in a book of memoirs recently said that the overwhelming amount of his time on the bench was taken up "with people who are persuaded by persons whom they do not know to enter into contracts that they do not understand to purchase goods that they do not want with money that they have not got."

Lord Greene, in Altruism and Cynicism and Law and Politics

A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.

Gian Vincenzo Gravina, in Altruism and Cynicism

I don't want any "yes-men" around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs.

Samuel Goldwyn, in Altruism and Cynicism

Bigot: One who is obstinately and zealously attached to an opinion that you do not entertain.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Altruism and Cynicism

Egoist: A person of low taste, more interested in themselves than in me.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Altruism and Cynicism

The covers of this book are too far apart.

Ambrose Bierce, in Altruism and Cynicism