Hope for Cynics Quotes

“Cynics call out injustice wherever they see it, but that doesn’t mean they are change-makers. In surveys of tens of thousands of people across dozens of countries, people who trust others are more likely than cynics to vote, sign petitions, join lawful demonstrations, and occupy buildings in protest.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“Cynicism is a lack of faith in people; skepticism is a lack of faith in our assumptions. Cynics imagine humanity is awful; skeptics gather information about who they can trust.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“Cynicism is a lack of faith in people; skepticism is a lack of faith in our assumptions. Cynics imagine humanity is awful; skeptics gather information about who they can trust. They hold on to beliefs lightly and learn quickly.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“As the famous saying goes, “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” But research suggests it deserves more credit than that.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“opposite. In studies of over two hundred thousand individuals across thirty nations, cynics scored less well on tasks that measure cognitive ability, problem-solving, and mathematical skill. Cynics aren’t socially sharp, either, performing worse than non-cynics at identifying liars.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“Studies find that cynical adolescents are more likely than non-cynics to become depressed college students, and cynical college students are more likely to drink heavily and divorce by middle age. Non-cynics earn steadily more money over their careers, but cynics financially flatline. Cynics are more likely to suffer heartbreak—and heart disease.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“As a neuroscientist, I learned that our brains don’t really see the world, they just interpret it. So, losing my body is not really a loss after all! What I am to you is really a reflection of your own mind. I am, and always was, there, in you.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“If optimism tells us things will get better, hope tells us they could. Optimism is idealistic; hope is practical. It gives people a glimpse of a better world and pushes them to fight for it.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“Beliefs are assumptions or conclusions; values are the parts of life that bring a person meaning. Beliefs reflect what you think of the world; values reveal more about yourself. Confusing these two can be dangerous business. When someone attaches their self-worth to a belief—political, personal, or otherwise—they desperately need to be right. Challenges to what they think feel like threats to how they think—evidence they aren’t smart or good enough. The person screaming loudest is often most fearful of being wrong.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“This stereotype reveals what most people believe: that cynics are smarter than non-cynics. Most people are wrong. In fact, cynics do less well at cognitive tests and have a harder time spotting liars than non-cynics. When we assume everyone is on the take, we don’t bother to learn what people are really like. Gullible people might blindly trust others, but cynics blindly mistrust them.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“When problems hide under the surface, light can be the best disinfectant. But in our politics, plenty of rot is visible already. What's hidden all around us is a peaceable, inquisitive majority drowned out by extreme voices.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“He had nothing to lose," a close friend remembers, "because he was happy with nothing." This freed him - Diogenese-style - to roam through life on his own terms, following whatever called him.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“Trust, the willingness to be vulnerable to others, is an expression of faith that they will do the right thing. It is how hope lives between people. By eroding trust, cynicism steals our present together and dampens the futures we can imagine.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“What was cynicism doing to me? To all of us? As I soon learned, it wears away the psychological glue that binds us.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“I began to examine my own cynicism. It’s a seductive worldview, dark and simple. Too simple, really, to explain much of anything.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“But there’s a difference between understanding something and feeling it. I’ve met miserable happiness experts and stressed-out meditation researchers. Scientists are sometimes drawn to what they have trouble finding in their own lives. Perhaps I’ve spent all this time charting a map of human goodness in the hopes of locating it more easily on the ground.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“I have discovered that most people value compassion over selfishness, that donating money activates similar parts of your brain as eating chocolate, and that helping others through their stress soothes our own. The message of our work is simple: There is good in us, and it does good for us.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“Acts of kindness are one of the fastest, most powerful ways to boost well-being.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“Our beliefs influence how we treat other people, which shapes how they act in return. Thoughts change the world, and cynicism is turning ours into a meaner, sadder, sicker place. All of this is deeply unpopular. Americans trust one another less than before, but 79 percent of us also think people trust too little. We loathe political rivals, but more than 80 percent of us also fear how divided we’ve become. Most of us want a society built on compassion and connection, but cynicism convinces us that things will get worse no matter what we do. So, we do nothing, and they worsen.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” —Kurt Vonnegut”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“The Supreme Court’s decision in Plessy v. Ferguson ushered in Jim Crow policies designed to disenfranchise Black Americans.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“Political hopelessness feels smart, and the idea that nations could find harmony starts to seem simpleminded and dangerous. Ironically, these cynical views about rivals are themselves clearly naive. But as political hopelessness charges on, it helps the most duplicitous political elites. So long as we think productive exchange is impossible, they don’t have to work toward it. So long as we fight over partisan identities, the struggles that most of us share—such as rising inequality—remain under the radar.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“That image says a lot about the moment we’re in. There’s plenty of American agreement, and not just on immigration. A 2021 survey of more than eighty thousand people identified nearly 150 issues on which Republicans and Democrats agreed. Several were endorsed by more than two-thirds of both parties. These included overturning Citizens United so that companies could not fund political campaigns, giving immigrants who arrived in the US as children a path to citizenship, and tax incentives to promote clean energy. And yet, in our imagination, shared values have eroded into tiny islands, barely visible above the waves.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“This completely changes your outlook,” White tells me, “from ‘What did you do wrong?’ to ‘What do you need? Are you hungry? Do you need time to shake something off?”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“As one scientist writes, kids under a punishment culture “engage in more defiant behaviors to reassert their freedoms and express their cynicism toward institutions.” At Lincoln, students became exactly who teachers feared.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“The qualities we think of as constant—personality, intelligence, and values—evolve over time, right along with our brains. This can be unsettling, or empowering. The ship of your life is sailing. You can’t stop it but can steer its path.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“In Toronto, 16 of 20 (80 percent) wallets were returned. In a large follow-up with over 17,000 “lost” wallets across 40 countries, most were brought back, with return rates reaching 80 percent in several countries. 2. In 2023, the World Happiness Report—a global survey that asks about people’s experiences and actions each year—revealed that volunteering, donating to charity, and helping strangers all increased significantly during the pandemic. For all its horrors, the plague revealed massive wells of human kindness.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“The comedian George Carlin once said, “Scratch a cynic and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“The place where Megan fulfilled her needs happened to be a cultlike community that stokes violence and contributed to the January 6 insurrection. Conspiracy theorists do vast amounts of harm to themselves, their families, and society.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“Some of Megan’s beliefs were pretty standard (politicians are “bought and paid for,” she tells me), some less so (9/11 was an “inside job”).”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness