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cynical
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  • It was the sort of secret I loved to discover, for it made me feel cynical and wise.†   (source)
  • Many try to blame the anger and cynicism of working-class whites on misinformation.†   (source)
  • Back in her flat she reflected cynically on what she'd just said.†   (source)
  • The former boy wonder was now a seasoned and slightly cynical leader of the city he'd called home his entire life.†   (source)
  • Unfortunately, Aringarosa had learned, in an age of religious cynicism, cults, and televangelists, Opus Dei's escalating wealth and power was a magnet for suspicion.†   (source)
  • In their broken state, they were judged and condemned by people whose commitment to fairness had been broken by cynicism, hopelessness, and prejudice.†   (source)
  • ...they were really having fun being cynical,†   (source)
  • Somehow she projected a jab of cynicism into the words.†   (source)
  • The cynicism in his voice sounded so much like Jen that Luke almost gave in to grief again.†   (source)
  • Williams's air of cynical detachment lent spice to the expanding media coverage.†   (source)
  • So, I said, in a reflexively cynical response, I guess the key to finding the meaning of life is to stop taking out the garbage?†   (source)
  • "Be careful, my cynical friend!" she warned, putting a hand in the air.†   (source)
  • She's not cynical or jaded.†   (source)
  • "Owen Meany isn't cynical!†   (source)
  • He had a child's body: fat stomach and thin legs with crusting sores, but a wrinkled, cynical face.†   (source)
  • I couldn't decide who was more annoying, the fanatic or the cynic.†   (source)
  • This was surely a cynical attempt to win forgiveness for what could never be forgiven.†   (source)
  • The half-shut eyes were dim with the infinite cynicism of adult life.†   (source)
  • His expression remained the same—cynical, defiant, painful.†   (source)
  • After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried abut the terrible number of things they didn't know about.†   (source)
  • ] Even worse, Peter's becoming insolent, Mr. van Daan irritable and Mother cynical.†   (source)
  • It was a cynical way of putting it, but it was true.†   (source)
  • Grisha laughed cynically.†   (source)
  • Cynical little cow, wasn't I?†   (source)
  • 'Don't worry, chief,' he said without the usual cynicism.†   (source)
  • Very cynical observation, but probably true.†   (source)
  • I tell her how he's less cynical than he thinks he is.†   (source)
  • Danny is doing subconsciously what these so-called mystics and mind readers do quite consciously and cynically.†   (source)
  • The bartender had a cynical twist to his lips and held a glass in his hand that he kept polishing, even though it was broken.†   (source)
  • Now I have found a language even more cynical than my own: in Kilanga the word nzolo is used in three different ways, at least.†   (source)
  • You are such a cynic!†   (source)
  • With the calm, sure cynicism of a twenty-three-year-old veteran he was sure that he would never experience anything that could not be so described, so dismissed.†   (source)
  • He approached American higher education with cold calculation and joyful cynicism.†   (source)
  • Now instead of being a mere ail-ment, his condition becomes an indictment of parental misdeeds (a strong thematic statement in its own right) and, as we latter-day cynics can recognize, a coded reference to an entirely different pair of letters.†   (source)
  • "Cynics need to be in some other industry;' he said.†   (source)
  • "Ammu," Chacko said, his voice steady and deliberately casual, "is it at all possible for you to prevent your washed-up cynicism from completely coloring everything?"†   (source)
  • There was something about Jace, though, that made her want to push him, crack that shell of cynicism and make him admit he believed in something, felt something, cared about anything at all.†   (source)
  • How, in this age of cynicism, could I convince my audience that I'd really won these things?†   (source)
  • The leader grinned, half cynical, half mocking.†   (source)
  • The empire's enemies grew thin and desperate and even the most cynical of men could see the end of the war was drawing swiftly near.†   (source)
  • Everybody's a cynic.†   (source)
  • Dr. Juvenal Urbino used to say, not without a certain cynicism, that it was not he who was to blame for those two bitter years of his life but his wife's bad habit of smelling the clothes her family took off, and the clothes that she herself took off, so that she could tell by the odor if they needed to be laundered even though they might appear to be clean.†   (source)
  • He found himself caught by the cynical tone, the bitterness that he had never seen her expose.†   (source)
  • He was prepared, in his cynicism, to find Moby Dick unreadable—five hundred pages about chasing a whale?†   (source)
  • The Cynics The story goes that one day Socrates stood gazing at a stall that sold all kinds of wares.†   (source)
  • I realized we kept piling up these presents because it was as good as free advertising for the firms involved, but I couldn't be cynical.†   (source)
  • "I've completely reversed my cynical take on Valentine's Day.†   (source)
  • El Jefe smiles cynically.†   (source)
  • He was the first cynic I had met.†   (source)
  • Among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all.†   (source)
  • Monika Nilsson was at her desk, an experienced general reporter specialising in political coverage; she could be the most jaded cynic he had ever met.†   (source)
  • I said cynically.†   (source)
  • A short, cynical laugh escapes from my mouth.†   (source)
  • He ended up in a quartermaster depot in North Africa where he had spent most of his time, as far as she could gather, defending Arab shoeshine boys and beggars against the cynical and malicious French.†   (source)
  • The cynical have always suggested that the Communists were using us.†   (source)
  • They were nearly all Jews: Juliek, a bespectacled Pole with a cynical smile on his pale face; Louis, a distinguished violinist who came from Holland — he complained that they would not let him play Beethoven: Jews were not allowed to play German music; Hans, a lively young Berliner.†   (source)
  • Never mind that the rest of us had long ago soured on EZ Products: my father was not dissuaded by our cynicism.†   (source)
  • I reckon they're blest—they got plenty of money," returned Shade, with the cheap cynicism of his kind.†   (source)
  • Martin had once seen the moon as hopeful, too, but after he was beaten down by cynics the moon was dark for him.†   (source)
  • It was no test of the cynicism of their murderers to claim that they were shot in attempting to escape.†   (source)
  • His voice was hard, cynical.†   (source)
  • They had been good years, and while he found his former commander to be something of a cynic, especially about the Party, he would unhesitatingly testify to Ramius' skill and craftiness.†   (source)
  • The cynic in me thought it likely.†   (source)
  • It was true that Peach had hinted a few times that people got married for reasons other than liking, but Peach was known to be cynical.†   (source)
  • Sure, it's one of those hard-boiled cynical crime dramas in moody black and white.†   (source)
  • A cynic might say that the money for the visit would have been better spent building another Cambodian school, but in fact that visit was an essential field trip and learning opportunity for those American students.†   (source)
  • Racing had recently emerged from an era of corruption, and though incidents of foul play were now extremely rare, reporters tended to be overly suspicious of horsemen, accepted rumors of wrongdoing with credulity, and adopted a studied cynicism.†   (source)
  • She was an attractive woman but with a hard, cynical look of someone to whom life had not been overly kind.†   (source)
  • He couldn't help feeling that he was being asked to bow to the salesmanship and refining skills of Texas and Saudi oilmen, but he put his cynicism aside.†   (source)
  • All in the name of a version of Bushido cynically devised to make young Japanese men fodder for the military's adventures.†   (source)
  • He was bald and cynical and talked curtly out of the side of his mouth while sucking on a lollipop.†   (source)
  • Why are the Twins so cynical about love?†   (source)
  • She still surrounded herself with the cynical aura of a dissolute past.†   (source)
  • I had not been cynical for one moment about the existence of God.†   (source)
  • He laughed quietly, his sunken, shrewd eyes sparkling perceptively with a cynical and wanton enjoyment.†   (source)
  • Don't give that affluent, white liberal stuff," he says finally, stunned that a smug, cynical, college-boy line just passed his lips.†   (source)
  • Cico laughed cynically.†   (source)
  • This reconciliation with Hitler reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything cynically permitted.†   (source)
  • But the cynicism of the obstetrician who has seen everything crept back in.†   (source)
  • Tom waved off his cynicism.†   (source)
  • Given the bareness of her family tree, it was easy to be cynical and to dismiss a lot of potential relatives.†   (source)
  • A lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism, or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria.†   (source)
  • But to be utterly frank, I'm incapable of such cynicism.†   (source)
  • This is not true of all crises, but it is true of sufficiently many to make the most hardened historian cynical and misanthropic.†   (source)
  • My soul and body have both been thrown into disorder by your absence, and a month or two more would make me the most insufferable cynic in the world.†   (source)
  • Farlow greeted him warmly and Robert was pleased to find as they chatted that they shared not just an appetite bordering on greed for caviar, but a wholesomely cynical attitude about those who'd provided it.†   (source)
  • I thought he would laugh at the bottomless stupidity of my cynicism, but while the laugh was still starting at the corners of his eyes, another look came, close to fright.†   (source)
  • Cynical already.†   (source)
  • "Give me priests who are fat and corrupt and cynical," he told Haldon, "the sort who like to sit on soft satin cushions, nibble sweetmeats, and diddle little boys.†   (source)
  • The face was wind-browned, cut by lines of weariness and cynical resignation; the eyes were intelligent.†   (source)
  • It also stems from the increasing isolation of black inner-city residents from both whites and middle-class blacks, and stems as well from a deep cynicism about the payoffs of conforming.†   (source)
  • That's simply cynical of you to talk like that.†   (source)
  • I'm not being cynical.†   (source)
  • That is so cynical!†   (source)
  • Interpreted by you, with a heavy dose of cynicism thrown in.†   (source)
  • It's called cynicism.†   (source)
  • But our cynicism about the genuineness of such sentiments is more our problem than theirs.†   (source)
  • I mean, we come from a cynical age.†   (source)
  • "You get what you deserve!" the halfling said aloud, smiling in spite of himself when he realized that he was beginning to sound as cynical as Bruenor.†   (source)
  • In fact, if I were a cynic, I'd have to say the two of you exploited it.†   (source)
  • Goddammit, Sarah, why do you have to be so cynical?†   (source)
  • Cynical.†   (source)
  • My old man was as cynically non-political as you could find; if he would say that in public, campaign must be taking hold.†   (source)
  • Yousef was looking through the glass, too, his face stripped of cynicism.†   (source)
  • It makes me something of a cynic.†   (source)
  • It was the kind of fun that creeps into your skin and spreads all over your body, and even if you want to be cynical about something, you just can't manage it.†   (source)
  • Sometimes there were jokes, cynical and weary, but there was no serious discussion.†   (source)
  • I was still full of doubt and cynicism.†   (source)
  • It has produced laws of a cynicism scarcely believable in a civilized society.†   (source)
  • "That sounds a rather cynical remark," Stormgren had replied doubtfully.†   (source)
  • He might have written the testament only to harass a onetime mistress, so cynically sure of being wiped out he could throw away all hope of anything more.†   (source)
  • This may now be difficult to explain, for the passage of thirty years and the fatigue and cynicism engendered by several barbaric American wars might make my reaction appear to be hopelessly old-fashioned and romantic.†   (source)
  • Charley leveled at me his most cynical eye.†   (source)
  • You seem so— HORNBECK Cynical?†   (source)
  • Encased in a glass-paneled office, looking imperiously out on a confusion of jangling telephones, scurrying copy boys, aged gents in green eyeshades, and marvelously cynical-looking men at typewriters who could only be reporters, he seemed as hospitable as a famished tiger.†   (source)
  • With our cynicism, created by years of insecurity, how did we look on men?†   (source)
  • He met failure as one day he would probably meet death, with cynical resentment and the courage of a solitary.†   (source)
  • He made a cynical grimace.†   (source)
  • "Happy in your job?" she asked cynically.†   (source)
  • All I did was make a pal of him and be absolutely frank so he'd learn from my mistakes that — He shrugs his shoulders-cynically.†   (source)
  • Still other Senators have not developed that habit—they have neither conditioned nor subdued their consciences—but they feel, sincerely and without cynicism, that they must leave considerations of conscience aside if they are to be effective.†   (source)
  • RICH (With conscious cynicism) What do I have to do for it?†   (source)
  • Powell hoped it was also ready for that cold-blooded, cynical monster of facts and evidence, Old Man Mose.†   (source)
  • They're professional cynics, and it's too late for them.†   (source)
  • Even after the second of Dick's illnesses she had tried to make Mary break her isolation: the doctor had been frighteningly cynical about the Turner menage.†   (source)
  • He had fallen into a deep cynicism over what had crossed his path,   (source)
    cynicism = believing that things usually go poorly and that selfish and insincere
  • Do you suppose this eternal shallow cynicism of yours has any real bearing on a nature like hers?   (source)
  • Oh no? the voice of the cynic whispered sardonically.†   (source)
  • Cynicism and demand for proof has become enlightened thought.†   (source)
  • I didn't know if it was because of my cynicism or the task I had facing me.†   (source)
  • Through it all, he had sensed the edge of cynicism in her—he knew her so well!†   (source)
  • Does that cynicism you carry around everywhere ever get heavy?†   (source)
  • The Cynics believed that people did not need to be concerned about their own health.†   (source)
  • My colleagues in medical school accused me of cynicism but they had no idea.†   (source)
  • His cynicism—a veteran's cynicism—was a thing that disturbed him all the time.†   (source)
  • My colleagues accuse me of cynicism, but I am simply a victim of poetry.†   (source)
  • In this we see their kinship with the Cynics, who claimed that all external events were unimportant.†   (source)
  • I mean, don't they have cynics in China?†   (source)
  • What factors in his life had brought out the cynicism as well as the genius?†   (source)
  • In spite of all he'd been through, I thought, he still hadn't acquired the reflex of cynicism.†   (source)
  • It was an adult's voice and filled with an adult's experience and cynicism.†   (source)
  • "It's time for a good dose of cynicism because love sucks.†   (source)
  • Edna and her maternity hospital bear witness to the fact that such cynics are wrong.†   (source)
  • I see a cynic who hasn't been able to completely stamp out his own sensitivity, his own empathy.†   (source)
  • The prosaic fact of the universe's existence single-handedly defeats the pragmatist and the cynic.†   (source)
  • I'm a cynic, so mostly I see the negative things."†   (source)
  • Active faith knows no fear, and it is a safeguard to me against cynicism and despair.†   (source)
  • He'd always had that fearless optimism that made cynics like me squirm.†   (source)
  • Even if it was with a hard-edged, casually rude cynic.†   (source)
  • Jennifer Anne rolled her eyes, clearly offended at sharing a table with a bunch of peons and cynics.†   (source)
  • "Don't let your mother's history make you a cynic, Remy," she said softly.†   (source)
  • But Hodge too, or the part of his mind that wasn't busy, had managed cynicism.†   (source)
  • EDMUND Scornfully parodying his brother's cynicism.†   (source)
  • But for Will Hodge Sr, firmly grounded in reality, the cynicism had not worked for long.†   (source)
  • So it was a little before Dachau that the mortar of cynicism was hardening.†   (source)
  • Cynics may point to our inability to provide a happy ending for each chapter.†   (source)
  • Jamie's face is hard with defensive cynicism.†   (source)
  • Combined with his habitual expression of cynicism it gives his countenance a Mephistophelian cast.†   (source)
  • He'd said that it seemed to him a dubious piece of reasoning; which got him the reputation either of a cynic or of a puritanical hypocrite, depending on his audience.†   (source)
  • Little Margery, who had specialized in sweet seven-year-olds who saved marriages and the lives of dogs unjustly accused of killing chickens, had been given the biggest Hollywood funeral in history by Top Mark — the official story was that Little Margery had contracted a "wasting disease" while entertaining at a New York orphanage — and some cynics suggested the studio had laid out all that long green because it knew it was burying itself.†   (source)
  • But there was something almost spiritual about the cynicism of the community at large, something that went much deeper than a short-term recession.†   (source)
  • If Major Rawls had earned a battlefield commission, he had earned his measure of cynicism, too; the major spoke in sustained, explosive bursts—like rounds of fire from an automatic weapon.†   (source)
  • I could predict what the tech-savvy cynics were thinking: In this age of digitally manipulated images, maybe those stuffed bears weren't really in the pictures with me.†   (source)
  • Stirring all this, I seasoned the mixture with a dash of Yeats's brilliant cynicism and a pinch of Pound's obscure, scholastic arrogance.†   (source)
  • "You're a cynic.†   (source)
  • Glick had come to expect Macri's cynicism, but what she was forgetting was that liars and lunatics had been Glick's business for almost a decade at the British Tattler.†   (source)
  • While reality permits some degree of cynicism, the fact that hillbillies like me are more down about the future than many other groups—some of whom are clearly more destitute than we are—suggests that something else is going on.†   (source)
  • By the time of Shaddam IV, while they were still formidable, their strength had been sapped by overconfidence, and the sustaining mystique of their warrior religion had been deeply undermined by cynicism.†   (source)
  • One of the favored candidates withdrew his application; although there was no direct evidence that Owen had contributed to the candidate's retreat, the man admitted there was a certain quality of "accepted cynicism" among the students that had "depressed" him.†   (source)
  • Add to the cynicism of a man wounded in war the inevitable cynicism of growing older and the professional cynicism of the journalist.†   (source)
  • In a world of apathy, cynicism, and technological deification, men like the camerlegno, realists who could speak to our souls like this man just had, were the church's only hope.†   (source)
  • The Cynics and the Stoics believed in enduring pain of all kinds, which is not the same as setting out to avoid pain.†   (source)
  • The cynicism.†   (source)
  • His mother, who was fifty-six and lived alone in the old family house on the south end of the island—the house where Ishmael had lived as a child—had pointed out to him when he'd come home from the city that this cynicism of his, while understandable, was on the other hand entirely unbecoming.†   (source)
  • Both the Cynics and the Stoics interpreted his philosophy as meaning that man had to free himself from material luxuries.†   (source)
  • Neoplatonism As I showed you, Cynicism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism all had their roots in the teaching of Socrates.†   (source)
  • The Cynics emphasized that true happiness is not found in external advantages such as material luxury, political power, or good health.†   (source)
  • As true children of their time, the Stoics were distinctly "cosmopolitan," in that they were more receptive to contemporary culture than the "barrel philosophers" (the Cynics).†   (source)
  • Nowadays the terms "cynical" and "cynicism" have come to mean a sneering disbelief in human sincerity, and they imply insensitivity to other people's suffering.†   (source)
  • The best known of the Cynics was Diogenes, a pupil of Antisthenes, who reputedly lived in a barrel and owned nothing but a cloak, a stick, and a bread bag.†   (source)
  • This statement could be the motto for the Cynic school of philosophy, founded by Antisthenes in Athens around 400 B.C. Antisthenes had been a pupil of Socrates, and had become particularly interested in his frugality.†   (source)
  • The Stoics The Cynics were instrumental in the development of the Stoic school of philosophy, which grew up in Athens around 300 B.C. Its founder was Zeno, who came originally from Cyprus and joined the Cynics in Athens after being shipwrecked.†   (source)
  • And again, Flora's heart leaped up high inside of her in a hopeful and extremely uncynical kind of way.†   (source)
  • His own marriage had come to an end five years earlier, but cynics would say it had ended long before that.†   (source)
  • 'There might not have been as much as he thought,' she said, hoping that the cynicism she felt hadn't rubbed through into her voice.†   (source)
  • You all pretend to be cynics and nihilists, but it's your own morality that steers the magazine, and several times I've noticed that it's quite a special sort of morality.†   (source)
  • The cynicism of the remark alarmed him.†   (source)
  • Brief glimpses of beautiful, inspirational meaning would slowly fade into boredom, or sorrow at the state of the world, and even cynicism.†   (source)
  • They made no secret of their cynicism.†   (source)
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