Many of us go through life feeling as an actor might feel who does not like his part; and does not believe in the play. ~Mignon McLaughlin; The Neurotic's Notebook; 1960


It must be admitted that there are some parts of the soul which we must entirely paralyze before we can live happily in this world. ~S?bastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort


"I put the question directly to myself:? ""Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to; could be completely effected at this very instant:? would this be a great joy and happiness to you?""? And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered; ""No!""? ~John Stuart Mill; Autobiography; 1909"


You're obliged to pretend respect for people and institutions you think absurd. You live attached in a cowardly fashion to moral and social conventions you despise; condemn; and know lack all foundation. It is that permanent contradiction between your ideas and desires and all the dead formalities and vain pretenses of your civilization which makes you sad; troubled and unbalanced. In that intolerable conflict you lose all joy of life and all feeling of personality; because at every moment they suppress and restrain and check the free play of your powers. That's the poisoned and mortal wound of the civilized world. ~Octave Mirbeau; Torture Garden


I grieve for life's bright promise; just shown and then withdrawn. ~William Cullen Bryant


We are adhering to life now with our last muscle - the heart. ~Djuna Barnes


He had an astringent spirit; the sort of fellow who uses dehydrated onion when the recipe calls for fresh; not because he's out but solely on principle. ~Emme Woodhull-B?che


The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~George Bernard Shaw


A satirist is a man who discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says them about other people. ~Peter McArthur


The better I get to know men; the more I find myself loving dogs. ~Charles de Gaulle


Paradoxical as it sounds; many intellectuals prefer life in the mud to life in clear water. ~Martin H. Fischer


Not to be born at all would be the best thing for man; never to behold the sun's scorching rays; but if one is born; then one is to press as quickly as possible to the portals of Hades; and rest there under the earth. ~Thiognis


Man is the cruelest animal. At tragedies; bullfights; and crucifixions he has so far felt best on earth; and when he invented hell for himself; behold; that was his very heaven. ~Friedrich Nietzsche; Thus Spake Zarathustra; 1892


It is not a fragrant world. ~Raymond Chandler


I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses. ~William Makepeace Thackeray


You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it; and that is the grave. ~Henry Ward Beecher


I don't answer the phone. I get the feeling whenever I do that there will be someone on the other end. ~Fred Couples


Things are not as bad as they seem. They are worse. ~Bill Press


Happy endings are only stories that haven't finished yet. ~Simon Kinberg; Mr. & Mrs. Smith


The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself. ~Ernest Hemingway


A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. ~Oscar Wilde; Lady Windermere's Fan; 1893


The army of wrongness rampant in the world might as well march over me. ~Truman Capote; Breakfast at Tiffany's; 1958


Oh that this too too solid flesh would melt; thaw and resolve itself into a dew. ~William Shakespeare; Hamlet


Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth. ~Horace Walpole


Life is one long process of getting tired. ~Samuel Butler


If there be a hell upon earth; it is to be found in a melancholy man's heart. ~Robert Burton; The Anatomy of Melancholy


I love mankind - it's people I can't stand. ~Charles M. Schulz; Go Fly a Kite; Charlie Brown


Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral?? Is it because we are not the person involved?? ~Mark Twain; Pudd'nhead Wilson; 1894


I do not believe in revealed religion - I will have nothing to do with your immortality; we are miserable enough in this life; without speculating on another. ~Lord Byron; 1778-1824; letter to Rev. Francis Hodgson; 1811


There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing. ~Maya Angelou; PBS; 28 March 1988


Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. ~Ernest Hemingway? (Thanks; Schanna)





The mad are happy; the sane ignorant; those of us stuck on the sane side of madness or the mad fringe of sanity are in a purgatorial cage. ~Anonymous


A cynic is a person searching for an honest man; with a stolen lantern. ~Edgar A. Shoaff


Sometimes you wake up in the morning and wish your parents had never met. ~Bill Fitch


Oftentimes; when people are miserable; they will want to make other people miserable; too. But it never helps. ~Lemony Snicket


My mind's terrain has become exceedingly rough. Emotional scars are changing my internal geography faster than the mapmaker can keep pace. Wrong turns and dead ends abound; and I'm afraid someday I'll drown in a river I didn't know was there. ~D.H. Mondfleur


Janie's a pretty typical teenager - angry; insecure; confused. I wish I could tell her that's all going to pass; but I don't want to lie to her. ~Alan Ball; American Beauty; 1999


Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows. ~David T. Wolf


I like long walks; especially when they're taken by people who annoy me. ~Fred Allen


When we are born; we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools. ~William Shakespeare; King Lear


I advise you to go on living solely to enrage those who are paying your annuities. It is the only pleasure I have left. ~Voltaire


There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness and death. ~Fran Lebowitz


God made everything out of nothing. But the nothingness shows through. ~Paul Val?ry; Mauvaises pens?es et autres; 1942


The enthusiastic; to those who are not; are always something of a trial. ~Alban Goodier


Satire is a sort of glass; wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own. ~Jonathan Swift; The Battle of the Books; 1704


Of the demonstrably wise there are but two:? those who commit suicide; and those who keep their reasoning faculties atrophied by drink. ~Mark Twain; Note-Book; 1935


My heart is glass; daily shattered. ~Jaesse Tyler


I've always been interested in people; but I've never liked them. ~W. Somerset Maugham


I would ask something more of this world; if it had something more. ~Antonio Porchia; Voces; 1943; translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin


I hate to be near the sea; and to hear it raging and roaring like a wild beast in its den. It puts me in mind of the everlasting efforts of the human mind; struggling to be free and ending just where it began. ~William Hazlitt


We semaphore from ship to ship; but they're sinking; too. ~Mignon McLaughlin; The Second Neurotic's Notebook; 1966


How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of good will. ~Albert Einstein


There are people who have an appetite for grief; pleasure is not strong enough and they crave pain. They have mithridatic stomachs which must be fed on poisoned bread; natures so doomed that no prosperity can sooth their ragged and dishevelled desolation. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Comfort; or revelation:? God owes us one of these; but surely not both. ~Mignon McLaughlin; The Neurotic's Notebook; 1960


The dignity of man lies in his ability to face reality in all its meaninglessness. ~Martin Esslin


Sarcasm is the sour cream of wit. ~Author Unknown


Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation. ~James Thurber; Further Fables for Our Time; 1956


Men hate to be misunderstood; and to be understood makes them furious. ~Edgar Saltus


It's just life - wake up and smell the thorns. ~From the movie Meet Joe Black


I see it all perfectly:? there are two possibilities; one can either do this or do that. My honest opinion and friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it; you will regret both. ~Kierkegaard


Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret. ~Benjamin Disraeli; Coningsby


I had a lover's quarrel with the world. ~Robert Frost; The Lesson for Today; 1942


We can destroy ourselves by cynicism and disillusion; just as effectively as by bombs. ~Kenneth Clark


He had the uneasy manner of a man who is not among his own kind; and who has not seen enough of the world to feel that all people are in some sense his own kind. ~Willa Cather


The world bruises us all; but some heal faster than others - and some bleed to death. ~D.H. Mondfleur


All our lives we are putting pennies - our most golden pennies - into penny-in-the-slot machines that are almost always empty. ~Logan Pearsall Smith


The Bible tells us to love our neighbors; and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people. ~G.K. Chesterton


Perhaps if we saw what was ahead of us; and glimpsed the crimes; follies; and misfortunes that would befall us later on; we would all stay in our mother's wombs; and then there would be nobody in the world but a great number of very fat; very irritated women. ~Lemony Snicket


Nothing begins; and nothing ends; that is not paid with moan; for we are born in other's pain; and perish in our own. ~Francis Thompson