A Quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I'm a cynical idealist.

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Quote Topics

Cynical Idealist

Quote Author

F. Scott Fitzgerald
American - Novelist
September 24, 1896 - December 21, 1940

An idealist who couldn't cope becomes cynical.

Amy Ray

No one more cynical than an idealist.

Tanith Lee

Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist.

George Carlin

I don't consider myself a cynic. I think of myself as a skeptic and a realist. But I understand the word "cynic" has more than one meaning, and I see how I could be seen as cynical. "George, you're cynical." Well, you know, they say if you scratch a cynic you find a disappointed idealist. And perhaps the flame still flickers a little, you know?

George Carlin

I've read a couple of reviews that say I'm getting harder in my old age but I don't think that's true at all. I think that you can't help but become a little cynical about life and love but I'm still a romantic, I'm still an idealist.

Madonna Ciccone

For the establishment, philosophy is both an elitist and an idealist discipline: In high school, it is a compulsory subject; at university, they teach the idealist line. They are conducting a conversation with themselves.

Michel Onfray

Don’t talk like that, Dill,” said Aunt Alexandra. “It’s not becoming to a child. It’s – cynical.” “I ain’t cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin’ the truth’s not cynical, is it?” “The way you tell it, it is.

Harper Lee

A cynic should never marry an idealist. For the cynic, marriage represents the welcome end of romantic life, with all its agony and ecstasy. But for the idealist, it is only the beginning.

Julie Burchill

Every materialist will be an idealist; but an idealist can never go backward to be a materialist.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you are not an idealist by the time you are twenty you have no heart, but if you are still an idealist by the time you are thirty, you don't have a head.

Randolph Bourne

Amongst my friends, I am known as the most cynical person they know - I'm incredibly cynical. I don't believe in God, I don't believe in the supernatural, I don't believe in anything! And I'm terribly cynical, and somehow or other, all three of my films and much of my television work has been rather sentimental, and 'heartwarming'.

Nigel Cole

You cannot prove realism to a complete sceptic or idealist; but you can show an honest man that he is not a complete sceptic or idealist, but a realist at heart. So long as he is alive his sincere philosophy must fulfil the assumptions of his life and not destroy him.

George Santayana

I think it's realistic to have hope. One can be a perverse idealist and say the easiest thing: 'I despair. The world's no good.' That's a perverse idealist. It's practical to hope, because the hope is for us to survive as a human species. That's very realistic.