Altruism and Cynicism

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.

Henry Louis Mencken, in Altruism and Cynicism

Welcome thy neighbor into thy fallout shelter. He'll come in handy if you run out of food.

Dean McLaughlin, in Altruism and Cynicism

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.

Groucho Marx, in Altruism and Cynicism

I'd never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.

Groucho Marx, in Altruism and Cynicism

An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.

Simon Cameron, in Altruism and Cynicism and Law and Politics

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

Abraham Lincoln, in Altruism and Cynicism

All government -- indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act -- is founded on compromise and barter.

Edmund Burke, in Altruism and Cynicism

Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to eat until he eats them.

Samuel Butler, in Altruism and Cynicism

Getting caught is the mother of invention.

Robert Byrne, in Altruism and Cynicism

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?

Jean Cocteau, in Altruism and Cynicism and Success and Failure

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Winston Churchill, in Altruism and Cynicism

An excuse is the mark of a moral coward.

Joseph Cimino, in Altruism and Cynicism

Once you've tried to change the world you find it's a whole bunch easier to change your mind.

Unknown, in Altruism and Cynicism and Success and Failure

The Golden Rule: whoever has the gold makes the rules.

Unknown, in Altruism and Cynicism and Success and Failure

Subtlety is the art of saying what you think and getting out of the way before it is understood.

Unknown, in Altruism and Cynicism

Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head.

Unknown, in Altruism and Cynicism

Baloney is flattery so thick that it can not be true and blarney is flattery so thin that we like it.

Fulton J. Sheen, in Altruism and Cynicism

When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him, it's called ferocity.

George Bernard Shaw, in Altruism and Cynicism

A reasonable man adapts himself to suit his environment. An unreasonable man persists in attempting to adapt his environment to suit himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

George Bernard Shaw, in Altruism and Cynicism and Vice and Virtue

A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern.

Edgar A. Shoaff, in Altruism and Cynicism