
“Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.”
Knox College commencement address http://www.knox.edu/colbert.xml (3 June 2006)
Context: Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. "Yes" is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.
“Cynicism is a sorry kind of wisdom.”
“Things are seldom what they seem;
Skim milk masquerades as cream.”
H.M.S. Pinafore (1878)
Music Preservation Society biography http://www.wchandymusicfestival.org/downloads/HandyBiography.pdf
The Aura of the Sacred lecture Juhani Pallasmaa's Agora lecture "Christianity as Secularisation" (15 August 2012).
From Curtis, Hillman, MTIV, Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer (Indianapolis: New Riders, 2002), page 221.
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 275.