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Cornel West Quotes - Page 6

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

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

Inspirational, America, Land

Cornel West (2000). “Race Matters”, p.16, Beacon Press

Success is such a relative thing for me. I'm fundamentally a Christian which means that ultimately all of the penultimate titles and things you just had to wear with a loose garment. Really.

Christian, Mean, Titles

The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.

People, Lasts, Chaos

Cornel West (1999). “The Cornel West Reader”, p.272, Basic Books

We’re beings toward death, we’re … two-legged, linguistically-conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose body will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms.

Two, One Day, Delight

I believe that all of us have gangster proclivities and greedy orientations that need accountability. That's why democracies are necessary. We have to have institutions to try to curtail the use of arbitrary power so that our greedy orientations and gangster-like proclivities don't get out of hand.

Believe, Hands, Accountability

Source: www.pbs.org

As a Christian, I got something the world didn't give me, the world can't take away, so I find joy that can never be reduced to anything. So I come into classroom on fire. I'm on fire for learning. I'm on fire for education, a paideia in the deepest sense of paideia, trying to get young people to shift from the superficial to the substantial, the shift from the bling-bling to letting freedom reign in their minds and hearts and souls.

Christian, Heart, Fire

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

Part of the popularity with Louis Farrakhan has less to do with the content of his message and more to do with the form that he portrays himself - as being a free, black person who speaks what is on his mind with boldness and fearlessness. Who is willing to pay the consequences.

Black, Mind, Pay

Source: www.pbs.org

The conversation with the dead is one of the great pleasures of life. Somebody who is sitting reading Chekhov, Beckett, reading Toni Morrison - you are not in any way dead, in many ways you are intensely alive.

Reading, Sitting, Alive

Source: genius.com

Martin Luther King would celebrate the symbolic status (of having a black president), but he would examine what the real substance was. And if he saw that poor and working people were not at the center of public policy, he would be deeply, deeply upset.

Kings, Real, People

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

We must never so thoroughly disrespect someone that they are beyond the pale and, therefore, have no possibility of being changed.

Disrespect, Possibility, Pale

Source: www.pbs.org

We're all vanishing organisms and disappearing creatures in space and time - that death sentence in space in time that Kafka talked about with such profundity.

Space, Vanishing, Disappear

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

Being a Christian is not a political orientation for the president, but he is a centrist.

Christian, Political, President

Sometime you just need to be silent, have a drink and crack a smile or somethin', because the human condition, in general, is just overwhelming in so many ways.

Cracks, Needs, Way

Interview with Itabari Njeri, articles.latimes.com. October 22, 1995.

I'm not pessimistic, because poor people tend to bounce back. We've been through worse than this - working people been through worse than this. We've got slavery and Jim Crow. We've got workers with no rights up until `35. We're going to bounce back. We are resilient, resisting people. So, it's not pessimism, but it is blues-like. It's not optimistic. We're just prisoners of hope, that's all.

Optimistic, Rights, People

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

Martin Luther King's legacy is never to be measured by bricks and mortar, but rather by the kind of lives that we live, and the kind of love and service that we render.

Kings, Bricks And Mortar, Legacy

Source: www.chicagotribune.com

He[Michael Jackson] had a joy in being alive. There was a joy you felt of him on the stage and making us not just feel good but pushing us against ourselves with the "Man in the Mirror," looking at ourselves critically, "Black or White," what does it mean to get caught in a color as opposed to a rich history and culture?

Mean, Men, Mirrors

Source: www.pbs.org

If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf.

Views, Gold, Ends

Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

Hatred of injustice is not the same thing as a love for everyday people.

People, Hatred, Everyday

Love is fundamentally a death of an old self that was isolated and the emergence of a new self now entangled with another self, the self that you fall in love with.

Falling In Love, Love Is, Self

Source: genius.com

The condition of truth, is to allow suffering to speak. Which means attend to suffering of the least of these, of the orphan, the widow, the poor, the working people, the gay brother, the lesbian sister, the transgender, the black people.

Brother, Mean, Gay

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

The rage is still there but I found the right kind of channel, because it's tied to a love, it's tied to a struggle for justice. And most importantly, for me, it's tied to a recognition that I am a cracked vessel.

Struggle, Justice, Recognition

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

We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property, it doesn't leave a whole lot of time for non-market values and non-market activity so that love and trust and justice, concern for the poor, that's being pushed to the margins, and you can see it.

Justice, Buying, Love And Trust

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

The most important assets we have are our bodies and our energy which can be put to good use as resources in political activism for poor and working people.

People, Political, Important

"Dr. Cornel West’s Prognosis for the Country’s Prospects". Interview with Kam Williams, www.pittsburghurbanmedia.com.

One is that I am a regular, everyday person, you know what I mean. I feel that wherever I am, I really am.

Mean, Everyday, Feels

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

There's a difference between just gaining access to a commodity as opposed to a spirit that allows us to live a life of love and justice, that when crisis and catastrophe hits you, that the biggest mansion in the world is not going to help you. If you don't have anybody who loves you, if you don't have any God who cares for you, that you're not going to have what it takes to move to the next stage in your life.

Love You, Moving, Differences

Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

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