Cornel West Quotes

Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us.

My friends are so cynical, they refuse to keep the faith.

I was giving up--being realistic, as people liked to say, meaning the same thing. Being realistic made me feel bitter.

I'm too cynical to be an optimist.

The worst thing about cynicism is its truth.

I'm capable of looking on the bright side. I just don't do it very often.

The belief that the good in American society will finally win out... I don't believe any more.

I'm rather a cynic, I suppose. I do not believe in the niceness of humanity.

I'm one of these people who tries to look for the good in people, but I've learnt that, actually, no, some people fundamentally just are not nice.

Idealist: a cynic in the making.

We suppose mankind more honest than they are.

Skepticism about authority turns into corrosive cynicism.

In the affairs of this world men are saved, not by faith, but by want of it.

I guess I don't have a grandiose view of the world in general, and I never believe it when someone else has a grandiose moment.

I'm not interested in 'lovey dovey,' everything is so great in the world. That doesn't interest me at all.

Feeling good about government is like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.

I'm not Pollyanna.

Cynic: an idealist whose rose-colored glasses have been removed, snapped in two and stomped into the ground, immediately improving his vision

I think it's dangerous to be optimistic.

I am disabused of all faith, and see too clearly.

He had the unlucky capacity many men have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to take any serious part in it.

What is the use of straining after an amiable view of things, when a cynical view is most likely to be the true one?.

I have no faith in the sense of comforting beliefs which persuade me that all my troubles are blessings in disguise.

I expect nothing of man, and disown the race. The only folly is expecting what is never attained; man is most contemptible when compared with his own pretensions. It is better to laugh at man from outside the universe, than to weep for him within.

You're such a cynic," Molly said. "I think cynics are playful and cute.