Citations:Timonism

Noun: form of bitter misanthropy

 * 1840, in The , September:
 * His "Timonism" scarcely shows itself, except against the priesthood, for which he has very little respect.
 * 1851, in , August:
 * But as Nature produces a few optimists and misanthropes, and circumstances many more, so we find certain poets whose verses are naturally optimistic or melancholy, and a greater number – of a lesser grade, be it said – whose verses, purporting to be results of their own experience, are evidently studied pictures of the utmost of cheerfulness or Timonism that can be evolved from the material around them.
 * 1852,, :
 * Then how could it be otherwise, than that an incipient Timonism should slide into Pierre, when he considered all the disgraceful inferences to be derived from such a fact.
 * 1886, in , 15 June:
 * No new Timon arose, for Timonism had been found out to be a fraud.
 * 1906, Prof., letter pub. in 1926:
 * Men are stuffy little fellows. Their manliness bores me—it is almost universal, and humanity is very rare. [...] the poor things keep on struggling in a web of phantoms. They play with dolls all their lives. It's no good talking to them about wisdom and beauty. They have a complete system. There's even a doll Hell. This is not Timonism, I am an optimist. They are saved, most of them by their guts. A doll has no guts.
 * 1933, Benjamin Kurtz, The Pursuit of Death:
 * [...], with the exception of Byron's dying Timonism and Browning's Christian heroism, [...]
 * 1941, Fred B. Wahr, in The Germanic Review:
 * The problem for Hauptmann's characters becomes one of defeating Timonism and regaining the will to live.
 * 1955, Arthur L. Scott, Mark Twain:
 * "The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg" and The Mysterious Stranger, fierce and real as their Timonism is, are as phony in their rendering of human behavior as The American Claimant and Joan of Arc.
 * 1978, Howard G. Zettler, -Ologies & -Isms:
 * Timonism: a personal despair leading to misanthropy. (Allusion to Shakespeare's Timon of Athens)
 * 1984, John Seelye, in In Recognition of William Gaddis:
 * As in all dark satire, "eating" suggests cannibalism, the ultimate theme of Timonism, and the body of the Host becomes strange flesh, hot from hell.
 * 1988, Paul Ollswang, "Cynicism":
 *  Cynicism is often contrasted with "Timonism" (cf. Shakespeare's Timon of Athens). Cynics saw what people could be & were angered by what they had become; Timonists felt humans were hopelessly stupid & uncaring by nature & so saw no hope for change.

Noun: bitter behavior or cynical utterance

 * 1891,, When I Lived in Bohemia:
 * Thus he ran on carelessly in this cynical vein; but I, after a time, paid no attention to his Timonisms, being taken up with the spectacle of a crowd in the street surrounding a carriage.