>>It is easy to be idealistic when you are young. I was idealistic way back when. As a matter of fact, I believe that most old cynics like you and me started out as idealists. Otherwise we would have nothing to be cynical about ;)
Attributed to Benjamin Disraeli (but actually used by French authors decades earlier:)
A (wo)man who is not a Liberal at sixteen has no heart; a (wo)man who is not a Conservative at sixty has no head.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
