Aphorisms Galore!

Altruism and Cynicism

173 aphorisms  ·  15 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/otpgz4zj  ·  submitted 1997

A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.

Gore Vidal, in Altruism and Cynicism

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.

Mark van Essen, in Altruism and Cynicism

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.

Mark Twain, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/sc3tpgkp  ·  submitted 1997

We have met the enemy, and he is us.

Walt Kelly, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/mnrh4p2b  ·  submitted 1997

Always forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

John F. Kennedy, in Altruism and Cynicism and Vice and Virtue

tiny.ag/uaqbnf1k  ·  submitted 1997

All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/q5s2gnzy  ·  submitted 1997

Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.

Ann Landers, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/rxmfom0a  ·  submitted 1997

The relationship between truth and a newspaper is like the relationship between the color green and the number seven. Occasionally you will see the number seven written in green, but you learn not to expect this.

Garrison Keillor, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/nqcfjvh0  ·  submitted 1997

Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.

Mary Ellen Kelly, in Altruism and Cynicism

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

tiny.ag/q93dw7gi  ·  submitted 1997

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

Albert Schweitzer, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/np9dvtka  ·  submitted 1997

Ninety percent of everything is crap.

Theodore Sturgeon, in Altruism and Cynicism

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/vgoawlvx  ·  submitted 1997

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.

William Shakespeare, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/vinogpxg  ·  submitted 1997

A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you.

Bert Leston Taylor, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/kdbyxotm  ·  submitted 1997

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

John Steinbeck, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/dxokyfu8  ·  submitted 1997

It's better to be quotable than to be honest.

Tom Stoppard, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/asecpbyl  ·  submitted 1997

A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern.

Edgar A. Shoaff, in Altruism and Cynicism

tiny.ag/dtxsg5kf  ·  submitted 1997

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is statistics.

Josef Stalin, in Altruism and Cynicism and Life and Death