Favorite Quote @ MindSay

Aesop (c. 600 B.C. ) Was he real or legendary? We're not absolutely sure. Aesop may have been a slave who lived on the Greek isle of Samos; it's said that he was slain by irate priests at the Oracle of Delphi. (He probably got himself into hot water by mocking their beliefs.) His works weren't assembled into book form until about eight centuries after his time. No doubt numerous ancient storytellers added to the collection along the way. But the reputed author of the world's most famous fables -- man or legend -- has to stand as literature's great proto-Cynic. His brief moral tales are sharp allegories of human folly -- even when the characters are foxes, crows, mice, tortoises and hares. Aesop's Fables teem with the wisdom and gentle mockery of someone who knows the human animal inside and out (especially our weaknesses). If you think Aesop is just for children, think again -- and read him again.

Favorite quote:
"Familiarity breeds contempt."

Antisthenes (c. 450- c. 370 B.C.) This old Greek was the founder of Cynicism -- the world's first official cynic! (How fitting that his name begins with ANTI!) A follower of Socrates, he believed that we must cultivate virtue and shun materialism. Does this sound like a cynic? The answer is a resounding YES! True cynicism springs from disappointed idealism. We wanted the world to be a nicer place than it turned out to be. So we thumb our noses at the sources of our disillusionment. The ancient Cynics gained an unsavory reputation by hanging out in the streets and mocking the conventional money-grubbers of their day. Sounds like a movement ripe for a revival!

Aristophanes (c. 448-c. 388 B.C.) The undisputed king of ancient comedy. This Athenian genius lampooned the political, social, and literary trends of his time in a series of mirthful comic plays. Aristophanes had a wonderful sense of the ridiculous, as when he put a dog on trial in The Acharnians. Like any good cynic, he was always eager to deflate the more pretentious intellectual fads of his day. Imagine what he would have done with Political Correctness!

Favorite quote:
"How useless is a decent education."

Diogenes of Sinope (c. 408-323 B.C.) Most celebrated of the ancient Cynics, this pupil of Antisthenes is fondly remembered for his outrageous deeds and sayings. (All of his writings have vanished.) In his pursuit of virtuous simplicity, he gave away his belongings and took up residence in a tub. When Alexander the Great approached him outdoors and asked if there was anything he could do for him, the old philosopher simply replied, "You can get out of my sunlight." According to legend, Diogenes carried a lamp by day in his cynical search for an honest man.

Favorite quote:
"I am Diogenes the Dog. I nuzzle the kind, bark at the greedy and bite scoundrels."

Menippus(first half of third century B.C.) Little known today (it doesn't help that his writings have vanished), Menippus was probably the first Cynic philosopher to write humor. A slave who purchased his freedom, he went to Thebes and studied Cynicism there. He is supposed to have regarded the world as a vast madhouse and had a keen eye for spotting absurdity. His tone veered from the serious to the outlandishly comical, and his satirical dialogues influenced many ancient writers including Lucian, who eventually influenced Swift. Too bad we can't read him.

Jesus of Nazareth (c. 5 B.C.-c. 30 A.D.) What can you say about a wandering Jewish teacher who loathed materialism, ranted about hypocrisy and castigated the smug religious establishment of his day? That he was the Son of God and the savior of mankind? Perhaps. (We won't know for sure until we meet him.) That he was a cynic of the noblest order? Just as likely, I think. I've hesitated to dub Jesus a cynic because of the holy trappings that have embellished his name down through the centuries. And yes, he told us to love our enemies and counseled us to "judge not." But let's never forget that the immortal Galilean personified the true cynic's eternal opposition to cruelty, privilege and humbug. He cared little for worldly institutions; instead, he advocated a revolution in the human heart.

Martial (c. 40-104 A.D.) Supreme master of the Latin epigram, the Spanish-born Martial produced hundreds of brief, wickedly witty miniature poems. Most of them stand up surprisingly well today -- biting, racy, sometimes downright insulting. A friend of Roman emperors and other notables of his day, Martial was a bit too much the comfortable insider to be a true cynic; picture Dennis Miller in a toga. But he was the sharpest and most irreverent wit of his age.

Favorite quote:
"You are so pure in mind and heart,
In aspect, too, so mild,
I wonder that you ever could
Implant your wife with child."

Juvenal (c. 58-c. 137) Roman cynic par excellence. His sixteen verse Satires rumble and grumble about life in the Empire. Peevish, pompous and judgmental, Juvenal wins our sympathy with his dark humor and wounded sense of justice. Here was a gifted man who (unlike his friend Martial) lived in near-poverty while he watched wealthy airheads make merry... a virtuous man who simply couldn't restrain himself from ridiculing the follies and evils of his day. (And those were days to rival ours in the folly-and-evil department!) His eloquent outrage makes him a fine companion for any cynic who feels at odds with the times.

Favorite quote:
"Honesty is praised and starves."

Lucian of Samosata (c. 115-c. 190) This Greek-speaking Middle Eastern freethinker was the most wildly imaginative of the ancient satirists. He wrote mischievous fantasies and dialogues, criticism and biographies, essays and rhetoric, possibly a novel (Lucius, or The Ass) and a rollicking mock-travelogue (The True History) that included a trip to the moon and anticipated Gulliver's Travels by more than fifteen centuries. Like the best satirists, Lucian expressed his outrage at human follies without losing his sense of fun. Naturally he was regarded as a blasphemer, though he somehow survived to a ripe old age.

François Villon (1431- 63?) Rogue, vagabond, outlaw, bohemian, and the premier poet of medieval France. Though educated at the Sorbonne, Villon repeatedly ran afoul of the law, lived among thieves, killed a man, and finally was exiled from Paris. He disappeared from history immediately thereafter, his fate unknown. His poems are bitter, eloquent, personal, often funny and ribald. Check out his masterpiece, The Grand Testament, his impassioned (and often mischievous) farewell to friends and enemies alike.

Favorite quote:
"A dying man enjoys free speech."

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) If Machiavelli had simply instructed rulers in the art of manipulating a gullible public, I wouldn't have enshrined him here. (Crass manipulation might be the world's idea of cynicism, but it's not mine.) The famed author of The Prince and The Discourses was a more complex and contradictory figure than the term "Machiavellian" would imply. He was cynical about the often brutal governments of Renaissance Italy; in fact, he was imprisoned and eventually exiled after the fall of the Florentine republic. His ultimate goal, to be sought by any means, was the establishment of a stable republic that invited public participation. Like most good cynics, Machiavelli turned out to be an idealist at heart.

Favorite quote:
"Oh thrice and four times happy are those who plant cabbages!"

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Wittiest and most eloquent of word-magicians, the mysterious Bard of Avon must take his rightful seat among the cynical immortals. Though we know relatively little about the man himself, his plays and sonnets reveal a lingering obsession with mortality and the futility of human enterprise. Life was, in the memorable words of the doomed Macbeth, "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Shakespeare gazed bravely into the ghastly hollow eyes of death and took no consolation from the prospect of a hereafter. Yet he was the sprightliest of wits; his mind teemed with irreverent jests and creative insults. For Shakespeare, comedy and tragedy were two sides of the same coin. We might be powerless to oppose the gods, and death is as dark as it is certain. But with a robust spirit we can snatch our share of love and mirth before the curtain falls.

Duc de la Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) This aristocratic Frenchman is famous for his Maxims, a collection of about 500 epigrams that typically expose the selfishness behind most of our "honorable" motives. Polished and pithy, these little gems still pack a punch three centuries later.

Favorite quote:
"We all have enough strength to endure the misfortunes of others."

Molière (1622-73) Born Jean Baptiste Poquelin, this greatest of French comic playwrights delighted in exposing the fashionable vices of society. Typically he would skewer a single folly in each of his mirthful satires: religious hypocrisy, the nouveau riche, intellectual pretension, quack medicine, or hypochondria. An actor as well as a playwright, Molière was fatally stricken while playing the hypochondriac onstage -- an irony he might have appreciated had he not been the victim.

Favorite quote:
"An educated fool is more foolish than an ignorant one."

Favorite quote:
"When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him."

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) With the mind of a genius in the body of a hunchback (he topped out at about 4 1/2 feet), it's no wonder that Pope grew into a sharp-tongued cynic. He translated Homer and befriended many of the leading men and women in an especially brilliant age. But he built his lasting reputation with wickedly elegant verse satires like The Rape of the Lock and The Dunciad, in which he skewered stupidity, folly, and men who happened to be less talented than Pope. Not the most lovable of cynics, but an admirable one.

Favorite quote:
"No creature smarts so little as a fool."

Favorite quote:
"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."

William Hogarth (1697-1764) England's premier visual satirist. In several memorable series of engravings like The Rake's Progress and Gin Lane, Hogarth skewered the rich and the poor with equal glee. His cynic's soul abominated the cruelty and sleaziness of "modern" urban life, and his work reveals a landscape peopled by drunks, curs and reprobates. Still, he kept an admirable balance between savage humor and genuine pity for suffering humanity.

Favorite quote:
"That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one."

Nicolas Chamfort (c. 1740-94) All good cynics should sympathize with the unfortunate Chamfort. Here is a man who tried and rejected the Church, the French aristocracy, and ultimately the French Revolution. A disillusioned soul known today for his brilliant maxims , he was persecuted for his outspoken views during the Revolution -- and is said to have died by his own hand when faced with arrest.

Favorite quote:
"There are well-dressed foolish ideas, just as there are well-dressed fools."

Francisco Goya (1746-1828) Arguably the greatest artist of his time, Goya made his reputation as the official painter of the Spanish court. (He must have been an extremely well-regarded and self-confident cynic to get away with depicting his royal patrons in such an unflattering light.) He grew even more cynical after going deaf in middle age, and his later works (like Los Caprichos and Disasters of War)rank among the darkest satires in the history of art.

Favorite quote:
"The sleep of reason produces monsters."

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) Friendless, unmarried, and estranged from his mother, the German-born Schopenhauer developed (not surprisingly!) a world-view that was bleak, misogynistic and steeped in pain. Fortunately he seasoned his writing with profoundly cynical wit. Schopenhauer may be the most pessimistic of the great philosophers, but he is also one of the most readable -- especially in his Essays and Aphorisms. Pay him an occasional visit, commiserate with him, marvel at his penetrating mind. But don't move in with him!

Favorite quote:
"Every writer writes badly as soon as he starts writing for gain."

Honoré Daumier (1808-79) One of the most penetrating caricaturists of all time, Daumier towered above the satirists of his day (including the writers). He rose to fame with his impudent political cartoons, which got him charged with sedition and tossed behind bars for six months. In an almost absurdly prolific career (Daumier produced nearly 4000 lithographs), he never tired of lampooning the foibles of the respectable European bourgeoisie -- a model for numerous lesser talents in the twentieth century and beyond.

Favorite quote:
"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."

Favorite quote:
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man."

Favorite quote:
Labor, n. One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) A zealous and solitary idealist, this indisputably brilliant German philosopher exhibited a superabundance of cynicism in his utter contempt for the human "herd." He called for a new breed of "superman" who would break the shackles of Christianity and inaugurate a heroic age. He died insane. Though no anti-Semite, Nietzsche was posthumously adopted (and his ideas perverted) by the Nazis in their campaign to forge a master race. Dip into Thus Spake Zarathustra or Beyond Good and Evil for a taste of his mesmerizing mind.

Favorite quote:
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process."

Favorite quote:
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."

Favorite quote:
[On being asked if he likes children]
"I do if they're properly cooked."

Favorite quote:
"The universe seems to be in a conspiracy to encourage the endless reproduction of lodge-joiners and Socialists, but a subtle and mysterious opposition stands eternally against the reproduction of philosophers."

Favorite quote:
"I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member!"

Favorite quote:
[On a stage performance by the young Katharine Hepburn]
"She ran the whole gamut of emotions from A to B."

Evelyn Waugh (1903-66) If he had written nothing but The Loved One, his whimsical satire of the American funeral business, Waugh would merit entrance to the Cynic's Hall of Fame. Plump, spoiled, and terminally snobbish, this upper-crust Briton was as gifted a prose stylist as he was a wicked observer of human folly. Other notable works include Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, and Black Mischief.

Favorite quote:
"Anyone who has been to an English public school will feel comparatively at home in prison."

Favorite quote:
[To the members of the press following his 1962 gubernatorial defeat]
"Just think how much you're gonna be missing. You don't have Nixon to kick around any more."

Gore Vidal (1925- ) The venerable Mr. Vidal would hardly relish the thought of spending eternity as Nixon's next-door neighbor in the Cynic Hall of Fame, but here he is all the same. A congenital Nixon-hater (and Christian-hater, and Republican-hater), Vidal represents that unique modern contradiction in terms: the left-wing snob. This latter-day pagan is among the most provocative and entertaining essayists since Mencken, as well as an ambitious novelist who relishes writing about the political underbelly of American history.

Favorite quote:
"There is nothing more debasing than the work of those who do well what is not worth doing at all."

Tom Lehrer (1928- ) Tom who? All right, so his career as a cynical songster came and went with the '60s. Those of you too young to remember him should know that this Harvard mathematician wrote some of the cleverest satirical song lyrics of all time, skewering village idiots as well as celebrities. His fame may die with the last of the Baby Boomers, but let it be known unto the ages that Prof. Lehrer left his unmistakable imprint upon a generation of cynics, and that we loved him.

Favorite quote:
"So long Mom, I'm off to drop the bomb, so don't wait up for me..."

Scott Adams (1957- ) Creator of the already legendary comic strip "Dilbert," beloved by legions of cubicle-bound captives for exposing the corporate world in all its high-minded mindlessness. The first (and possibly the last) MBA to make the Cynic Hall of Fame, Adams launched Dilbert in 1989 while working at a series of techno-managerial jobs at Pacific Bell. He continued to work there until 1995 -- undoubtedly because the environment provided such excellent source material for his strip. Adams notes that Dilbert himself is "a composite of my co-workers over the years. I started using him in business presentations and got great responses" -- a phenomenon that continues unabated to this day.