Beneath every cynic there's a frustrated romantic.

“A cynic is a frustrated idealist.”

— Al Ruksenas

Remember, beneath every cynic there lies a romantic, and probably an injured one.

— Glenn Beck

A cynic is only a frustrated optimist.

— Anonymous

The cynic makes fun of all earnestness; he makes fun of everything and everyone who feels that something can be done. . . .…

— George Edgar Vincent

The idea of The Boy Vs. The Cynic is the tension between the wide-eyed optimism in youthfulness where you think nothing can go wrong,…

— John Reuben Zappin

Remember that all is opinion. For what was said by the Cynic Monimus is manifest: and manifest too is the use of what was…

— Marcus Aurelius

An executive should be a realist; and no one is less realistic than the cynic.

— Peter Drucker

“Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers, things standing shall fall, but the moving ever shall stay.”

— Basava

“Skeptics are always marked by their total lack of skepticism towards whatever position they are defending.”

— Steve Madison

I get the cynicism thing all the time, although I don't really know where that comes from, because I think I'm actually the opposite…

— Matt Taibbi

Only the broken-hearted idealist can become a cynic.

— Mark Clifton

Why should we strive, with cynic frown, to knock their fairy castles down?

— Eliza Cook

“That's what I've never been able to get about religion: that charmless combination of altruism and insanity. Give me a cynical, self-interested bastard any…

— Mike Carey

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…

— Stephen Colbert

The only activity a cynic will find contagious is yawning, that is, with other people, at other people.

— Criss Jami