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Poor people can be greedy, too. It's just that they don't have any material resources. We need shaping of the souls as well as shaping of our institutions.

Cornel West

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Cornel West
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: June 2
Actor
Critic
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Tulsa
Oklahoma
Cornel Ronald West
Cornel R. West
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More quotes by Cornel West

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I'm not saying that President Obama should be exempt from criticism, nor do I believe it is some act of racial treason for a black person to hold our president accountable for his actions.
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Anger can be a bitterness that devours your soul while righteous indignation is morally driven, it's ethically driven.
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The women can always choose the patriarchal models, and you end up with a Margaret Thatcher.
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Martin Luther King wanted to be morally consistent and speak out against various things that were wrong, not just racism.
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I believe philosophy must go to school with the poets it's not either/or, it's not over or against.
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Context shapes who you are.
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As long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive.
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The black church often has reinforced certain self images that are damaging to black peoples' beauty, black peoples' confidence.
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But black folks have never really been optimists. We've been prisoners of hope, and hope is qualitatively different from optimism in the way that there's a difference between The Blues and Lawrence Welk. The Blues and Jazz have to do with hope while the other is sugarcoated music which has to do with sentimental optimism.
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I don't believe in the elimination of evil. But I believe in fightin' against evil.
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White supremacy is so deep-seated that it's hard to see it eliminated. But we could definitely push it back.
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I'm a bluesman moving through a blues-soaked America, a blues-soaked world, a planet where catastrophe and celebration - joy and pain - sit side by side.
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To be human you must bear witness to justice.
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Pleasure, no matter how desirable, is never innocent: it's always presupposing and assuming a certain kind of social order, one usually shot through structures of domination.
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Nihilism is a natural consequence of a culture (or civilization) ruled and regulated by categories that mask manipulation, mastery and domination of peoples and nature.
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There is no such thing as institutional conditions without any individual actions and no such thing as individual action without institutional conditions. So there is always personal responsibility.
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Too many young folk have addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth and love.
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I think we must never, ever demonize one another. That's true not just black people to black people that's human being to human being.
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Wall Street is stronger than ever.
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If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf.
Cornel West