In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.
Since I no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity; egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, I have stopped being a misanthrope.
Don't ever make the mistake with people like me thinking we are looking for heroes. There aren't any and if there were, they would be killed immediately. I'm never surprised by bad behaviour. I expect it.
The temptation shared by all forms of intelligence: cynicism.
You're such a cynic," Molly said. "I think cynics are playful and cute.
I realize more and more how instinctively pessimistic I am of all human kindness -- since I am always so bowled over by it -- and am never surprised by injustice, malice or personal attack.
I am not optimistic, but I've never been optimistic about humankind or America. The evidence never looks good in terms of forces for good actually becoming prominent.
The one thing I have absolute faith in is mankind's capacity to make things worse. No matter how bad it gets, we're all happy to screw each other over. It's enough to make me wonder if we should have let the zombies win.
I have little belief in human progress. The human race is incurably idiotic. It will never be happy.
I expect nothing of man, and disown the race. The only folly is expecting what is never attained; man is most contemptible when compared with his own pretensions. It is better to laugh at man from outside the universe, than to weep for him within.
There is less misery in being cheated than in that kind of wisdom which perceives, or thinks it perceives, that all mankind are cheats.
Misanthropy is a suit of armor lined with thorns.
We don't trust anyone who does anything nice. That's just the sad world we live in.
