Doubt is the middle position between knowledge and ignorance. It encompasses cynicism but also genuine questioning.

Cynicism is the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence.

It's a wonderful thing working with young actors. I know a lot of people don't like working with children. I actually adore it because you watch their imagination open up and you watch them start to learn this job that I've been doing for so long. They come with such a lack of cynicism.

Cynicism and naivety lie cheek by jowl in the American imagination if the United States is one of the most venal nations on Earth it is also one of the most earnestly idealistic.

I suppose I miss the British cynicism and the humor.

In the end that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

Cynicism is humor in ill health.

Life is not an easy matter... You cannot live through it without falling into frustration and cynicism unless you have before you a great idea which raises you above personal misery above weakness above all kinds of perfidy and baseness.

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear and it's worse than fear - it's active disengagement.

Optimism with some experience behind it is much more energizing than plain old experience with a certain degree of cynicism.