A cynic's laugh — a handful of quotes collected by Milicent Cranor

© 2018 Peter Free

 

29 January 2018

 

 

When I was young

 

I thought that something preponderantly good might come from humankind (as currently evolved).

 

Now that I'm old, I no longer do.

 

 

If you are similarly inclined

 

You may welcome the dark delight afforded by some of the quotations that Milicent Cranor published, regarding the exercise of "power and corruption."

 

A sample of those includes these three:

 

 

Mark Twain's — It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.

 

Edward Gibbon's — Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.

 

Bernard Shaw's — Revolutionary movements attract those who are not good enough for established institutions as well as those who are too good for them.

 

 

And so on.

 

 

The moral? — Human intelligence is not enough to gracefully survive Homo sapiens' moral baseness

 

We live in theater dedicated to intelligence's death by interminable cuts.

 

Bright and hearted people take comfort in wittily summing disillusionment's pith. Humor removes ambiguity's sting.

 

For those who recognize the allusion, are you one with raindrops on wild stone?