History Quotes / SillyRabbitCynicismIsForLosers

->The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.

->''"[[HumansAreGood This world is full of men and women who have the courage to listen to their hearts...and who believe in doing what's right! I'm not just talking about heroes, Dad. I mean everyday people...like you...and me]]! The Devils can never win...as long as we have hope! That's why you can't give up! You mustn't surrender to despair...or you'll run the risk of becoming a monster yourself!"''

-->-- '''The Hoaxer''' to '''Moonman''', ''ComicBook/FlexMentallo''

-> ''"Know what '''I''' think? I think you want everyone dead because looking at life makes you realize what you're missing. Only a bitter little adolescent '''boy''' could confuse realism with pessimism."''

->''"A weakened mind always sees everything through a black veil. The soul makes its own horizons; your soul is dark, which is why you see such a cloudy sky."''

-> ''"Do not be a clockwork orange.\\

That’s what human freedom means."''

->''"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy"''.

->''"...sometimes we ask ourselves why happiness took so long to arrive, why it didn't come sooner, but appears suddenly, as now, when we've given up hope of it ever arriving, it's likely then that we won't know what to do, and rather than it being a question of choosing between laughter and tears, we will be filled by a secret anxiety to which we might not know how to respond at all."''

-->-- Julius from ''Literature/NiceDragonsFinishLast''

->''"The Doctor: I know your type. [[StrawNihilist The nihilist know-it-all]]. But through all this wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey rubbish, there's one thing you never quite understood. I'm the Doctor. And I don't wanna go."''

->''"What we do echoes through generations. Whatever our backgounrds, we are all the children of Americans who fought the good fight. [[TheGildedAge Great grandparents who were working in fire traps and sweatshops without rights or representation. Farmers losing their dreams to dust.]] [[AnImmigrantsTale Irish and Italians and Asians and Latinos told, 'Go back to where you come from.' Jews and Catholics, Muslims and Sikhs, made to feel suspect for the way they worshiped.]] [[UsefulNotes/CivilRightsMovement Black Americans chained and whipped and hanged, spit on for trying to sit at lunch counters. Beaten for trying to vote.]] If anyone had a right to believe that this democracy did not work and could not work, it was those Americans. Our ancestors. They were on the receiving end of a democracy that had fallen short all their lives. They knew how far the daily reality of America strayed from the myth, and yet instead of giving up, [[{{Determinator}} they joined together and they said, 'Somehow, some way, we are going to make this work. We are going to bring those words in our founding documents to life.']]"''

--> '''WebVideo/TheMysteriousMrEnter'''

--> '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsLp9SiLYvM Vanegood]]'''

-->-- ''Comicbook/{{Saga}}''

-->-- '''[[Franchise/SpiderMan Peter Parker]]''', ''ComicBook/MaximumCarnage''

->'''Franchise/{{Superman}}:''' What made you change your mind?

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->''"[[ShutUpHannibal I don't care what you say!]] We'' will ''stop them, and I'' will ''stop you! [[Awesome/{{RWBY}} BET ON THAT!]]"''
-->-- '''[[TheHero Ruby Rose]]''', to [[TheDragon Roman Torchwick]], ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}''

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-->''I see trees of green...''

-> '' Know what '''I''' think? I think you want everyone dead because looking at life makes you realize what you're missing. Only a bitter little adolescent '''boy''' could confuse realism with pessimism.''

Seems to me, it ain't the world that's so bad, but [[HumansAreFlawed what we're doing to it]]. And all I'm saying is, "See what a wonderful world it would be, if only we'd give it a chance." Love, baby, love: [[ThePowerOfLove That's the secret.]] Yeeaahhh! If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And, man, this world would be a gasser! That's why old Pops keeps saying,''

->"If someone ever tells me it's a mistake to have hope, well, then, I'll just tell them they're wrong. And I'll keep telling them 'til they believe! No matter how many times it takes."

-> '''Hoaxer:''' Know what '''I''' think? I think you want everyone dead because looking at life makes you realize what you're missing. Only a bitter little adolescent '''boy''' could confuse realism with pessimism.

->''I know that being dated and over it\\

And you can choose to change your vision's prismic range today.''

->Some of you young folks been saying to me, "Hey, Pops! What you mean, 'What a Wonderful World'? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? They ain't so wonderful either!" Well, how about listenin' to old Pops for a minute?\\
Seems to me, it ain't the world that's so bad, but [[HumansAreFlawed what we're doing to it]]. And all I'm saying is, "See what a wonderful world it would be, if only we'd give it a chance." Love, baby, love: [[ThePowerOfLove That's the secret.]] Yeeaahhh! If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And, man, this world would be a gasser! That's why old Pops keeps saying,

->''WE ARE NOT "BORN TO DIE". DOES A BOOK BEGIN JUST TO FINISH? DOES A SONG OPEN WITH A BEAUTIFUL CHORD PURELY TO END?''

->''YES. WE ARE BORN WITH THE INEVITABLE FATE OF DEATH. BUT THAT IS MERELY THE FINAL ACT OF THE PLAY. WE ARE BORN TO LOVE, BE JOYOUS, TO MOVE, LEARN, CRY, AND FEEL. WE ARE, IN FACT, BORN TO LIVE.''

-> ''Dear life, you've been very difficult lately. But I'm gonna be happy anyways. Because I can be difficult, too.''

->''Turns out, resentment is corrosive, and I hate it.''

->''[[TheEmpire They]] win by making you think you're alone. Remember? There's more of us!''

-> Now, there's this about cynicism, Sergeant. It's the universe's most supine moral position. Real comfortable. If nothing can be done, then you're not some kind of shit for not doing it, and you can lie there and stink to yourself in perfect peace.

->''“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy"''.

->"I'm not playing at all....When you treat everyone you meet as either an enemy or a pawn, you give others no choice but to hate or fear you.... No one's strong forever. No matter how good a user you are, when you treat others like tools, you're setting yourself up for an endgame that inevitably leaves you outnumbered and alone, with no one but resentful pawns for backup. That doesn't sound like victory to me...This doesn't have to be a fight or a war or a game or any of those terrible dragon metaphors for life. Because we're not thoughtless pawns with artificially limited moves. We're dragons."

->''So when you feel your heart sink into your chest\\

We are not okay'' '''''but this is not the end yet'''''

->I wanna dedicate this area to some personal friends of mine - [[MadScientist the Sons and Daughters of Ether]]. Oh, sure, some of you probably dismiss them because they seem silly: while most of us stay wrapped in some Gothic pity-party, the Etherites fly around in [[CoolAirship impossible ships]], strap themselves into Victorian [[MagiTek wonder machines]], smoke silly pipes and generally make a mockery of all that is sullen and serious.\\

There's nothing quite as subversive as the refusal of cynicism. When everyone around you is dressed in black and dripping hostility, what could be more subversive than to dress in bright, bold colours and run headlong with almost suicidally-optimistic abandon? The Ether Folks have this wonderfully skewed vision - one part [[RaygunGothic future]], two parts [[SteamPunk past]] and one part [[CrazyIsCool totally demented]] - that I have no choice but to admire. Anyone who can make a toaster grow wings, fly, and play Beethoven's Fifth is a man or woman worth respecting.

->''"Humans are monsters and everything is awful" has been done to death and is demonstrably untrue. We have enough angry sixth-grade poetry, guys, we can stop writing "people are all terrible" stories now.''

->''"This ties into the general idea that optimism is naïve, something you're supposed to grow out of, and pessimism is real, the state you grow up into; [[BaitAndSwitch and that's a load of hooey]]. Yeah, I said it! What are you going to do, be sad at me about it?''

->"I think I hate this comic more than any other I've ever reviewed, because it is the complete antithesis of everything I believe in. Holy Terror says that you should be unkind, it says you shouldn't trust people, it says compassion will be repaid with violence, and that violence can only be answered with more violence, and that violence is strength. That hurting others is not only enjoyable and desirable, but that it should be employed first when dealing with threats. It says that if you have power, you should lord that power over others and do harm to them. It says that revenge is a worthy cause. It treats women as either victims or enemies, and don't assume Natalie Stack is immune to this criticism, trust me, the book ain't over yet. It tells us we should fear the other, the foreigner, the dark-skinned, the religion that's not your own. And you know what the damndest thing of all is? I am honest to God afraid of terrorism. Terrorism is real. There are people out there who want to kill me either because I'm from a different country or just because they're some angry misanthrope with a gun. That applies to both foreign and domestic terrorists. Terrorism is about making someone so afraid that they'll do what you tell them to. And the grand message of Frank Miller's Holy Terror is: Be afraid. Be terrified. And let's give in to that fear. And embrace every dark, sick and inhuman part of our souls as a result, and do everything to them that they will do to us. Frank... you must be so proud."

->''Depression is a disease, make no mistake. [[Creator/LarsVonTrier Von Trier]] can romanticize it all he wants, but it's a stasis. A dead end. Succumbing to it is to surrender to death. And he can go on and on about how hollow our culture is and how shallow life is, but what of it? I'm alive, and I can experience the new, and share it. Here, now, I'm alive, and what happier thing can be said?''

->Idiocy usually comes from lack of data or experience. She still doesn't have enough. She hadn't addressed that core issue, so she's still an idiot. (...) She keeps losing and losing and losing. She did not handle *any* of her original goals. A [[JerkassFacade persona]] was not an answer.

->"Jaded sarcasm isn't brave in 2020. It's the path of least resistance for edgy chan-lords. It does not imply a deep and abiding morality."

->This is why I adore old school superhero cartoons made for kids, and why I think children’s animation, as long as it has the “that everyone can enjoy” caveat, is the best way to experience the superhero genre. These shows are just so sincere about liking what they are, they don’t need to justify it by adding snark, meta mockery of the genre or sexual titillation to make the audience feel more grown up and smarter than everybody else.

->What's wrong with a lullaby? What's wrong with happy endings? Are they really all unrealistic or does it depend on the amount of hope in your heart? Your philosophy on life?

->"I could write ninety percent of an essay on how any of these games are [[DarkerAndEdgier 'the darkest']] in [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda their series]], but then you get to the end and… what? 'Isn't it crazy how messed up this is?' It's an empty reading, substanceless. Ironically, it’s juvenile. Being 'messed up' is not a theme. Darkness is not a narrative. Violence on its own is not mature. Every description I’ve given thus far is missing the crucial piece, the 'so what?', the 'why should I care?'... To brand any of these games as the darkest Zelda is to miss the forest for the trees, focus on the storytelling methods without considering what the stories themselves are doing with them. Heroism shines when contrasted with the darkness. Acts of compassion mean more when stakes are high. And this perspective also misses the levity of the stories, and what those moments contribute as well. [[TooBleakStoppedCaring A world without joy and humor isn’t a compelling world to fight for.]] Every one of these games become meaningful through their lightest elements, absurd side characters and silly mini games and the idea of Link not being heavy until he takes the metal boots out of his pocket and puts them on his feet. Zelda games flourish in this twilight, the melding of light and dark. The disparate tones mutually empower each other."

-->--'''Linkara''' explaining his hatred of Creator/FrankMiller's ''ComicBook/HolyTerror''

-->-- '''[[OldMaster Teshin]]''', ''VideoGame/Warframe''