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Cornel West Quotes - Page 3

All Quotes Accountability Addiction Arrogance Children Church Commitment Community Compassion Country Culture Democracy Dialogue Evidence Evil Fighting Genius Giving Greatness Greed Hatred Healing Heart Hip Hop House Humanity Inequality Inspirational Integrity Jazz Jesus Joy Justice Language Legacy Loneliness Luther Lying Morning Obsession Optimism Overcoming Pain Passion Philosophy Pleasure Quality Racism Rage Reading Sacrifice Sadness School Serving Others Silence Slavery Soul Struggle Suffering Values Wall War Wealth White Supremacy Wrestling

You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they're still scared. And as long as you're scared, you're on the plantation.

You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they're still scared. And as long as you're scared, you're on the plantation.

Long, Scared, Plantations

"Cornel West: Obama's Speech on Zimmerman Verdict Full of Hypocrisy". Interview with Amy Goodman, www.alternet.org. July 23, 2013.

To get up in the morning & do the monumental tasks that face us, our labor is best fueled by love.

Morning, Tasks, Faces

Cornel West (2011). “Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, a Memoir”, p.341, ReadHowYouWant.com

To me, healing means you have to recognize there is a wound and you try to understand what the sources of the wound are, which means you try to tell a story about how it came to be. So you have to engage in some historical interpretation.

Healing, Mean, Historical

Source: articles.latimes.com

You can't talk about truth without talking about learning how to die because it's precisely by learning how to die, examining yourself and transforming your old self into a better self, that you actually live more intensely and critically and abundantly.

Self, Talking, Transforming

Source: genius.com

To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America -- this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes' -- needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it.

Country, Men, America

FaceBook post by Dr. Cornel West from Mar 24, 2010

You can't have a high-quality relationship without time and without trust.

Quality, Without Trust, High Quality

"Cornel West, 'Living And Loving Out Loud'". "Talk of the Nation" with Neal Conan, www.npr.org. October 29, 2009.

Faith is stepping out on nothing and landing on something.

Faith, Landing

Cornel West (1993). “Prophetic Fragments”, p.7, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

The aim is not for me to be right. The aim is to make sure that we keep the focus on the people who are suffering. That's what we're here for.

People, Focus, Suffering

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Greatness is telling the truth & being courageous in pursuit of justice. The worst thing you could tell young people is to be successful but become well-adjusted to an unjust status quo as opposed to being great & being maladjusted to an unjust status quo.

Successful, Greatness, People

When you love people, you give them a priority. You have a sense of urgency about their pain.

Pain, People, Giving

Source: www.pbs.org

You can't talk about truth unless you talk about yourself.

Healing, About Yourself

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.

Civilization, Nihilism, Mastery

FaceBook post by Dr. Cornel West from Jun 20, 2012

The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they simply want what most people want, to be judged by the quality of their skills, not by the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis.

Color, Skills, White

You see it even in our educational systems, where the market model becomes central. It's a matter of just gaining a skill or gaining access to a job to live in some vanilla suburb, as opposed to becoming a critical citizen concerned with public interest and common good.

Jobs, Educational, Skills

"Cornel West Reconsiders President Obama". "Talk of the Nation" with Tony Cox, www.npr.org. August 2, 2010.

Patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.

Morning, Struggle, Recovery

Bell Hooks, Cornel West (1991). “Breaking bread: insurgent Black intellectual life”, South End Pr

Every president needs to deal with the permanent government of the country, and the permanent government of the country is Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats and the questions becomes what is the relationship between that president and Wall Street.

Country, Wall, Government

There are three dominant tendencies in a neoliberal society: financialized, privatized, militarized. And when it comes to black poor people, we get all three.

People, Black, Three

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

I try to, in my own fallible way, speak the truth.

Trying, Way, Speak

"Cornel West Reconsiders President Obama". "Talk of the Nation" with Tony Cox, www.npr.org. August 2, 2010.

There are various forms of weaponry, intellectual weaponry, spiritual weaponry, political weaponry, economic weaponry. Because we are on the battlefield, and there are bullets flying, some symbolic, some literal and the life of the mind is a crucial place where the battle goes on.

Spiritual, Political, Flying

Source: www.pbs.org

Those who came to the United States didn't realize they were white until they got here. They were told they were white. They had to learn they were white. An Irish peasant coming from British imperial abuse in Ireland during the potato famine in the 1840s, arrives in the United States. You ask him or her what they are. They say, "I am Irish." No, you're white. "What do you mean, I am white?" And they point me out. "Oh, I see what you mean. This is a strange land."

Mean, Land, White

All individuals have the same value, not to be determined by market price. They're made in the image and likeness of God.

Determined, Individual, Made

Source: www.pbs.org

If you've got on the one hand death, dogmatism, domination, and on the other you've got desire in the face of death, dialogue in the face of dogmatism, democracy in the face of domination, then philosophy itself becomes a critical disposition of wrestling with desire in the face of death, wrestling with dialogue in the face of dogmatism, and wrestling with democracy, trying to keep alive a very fragile democratic experiment.

Philosophy, Wrestling, Hands

Source: genius.com

Education is soul crafting.

Educational, Soul

The most dangerous thing in American society is a self-respecting and self-loving black person, because they're on the road to freedom and that means they're gonna run up against the powers that be.

Running, Mean, Self

Source: articles.latimes.com

I would say you have to fight in the life of the mind as well as fight in the streets, as well as fight in the courts, as well as fight in congress and the White House. Every site is a sight of contestation.

Fighting, Sight, White

Source: www.pbs.org

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