There’s no doubt that many of the mainstream white institutions tend to be cosmetic and symbolic when it comes to including African-Americans, whereas we black folk tend to be much more sensitive about embracing others, and we have a long history of that.

— Cornel West

Cornel West Quotes

To be humble is to be so sure of one’s self and one’s mission that one can forego calling excessive attention to one’s self and status.

— Cornel West

And when you love people, you hate the fact that they’re being treated unfairly. You tell the truth. You sacrifice your popularity for integrity. There is a willingness to give your life back to the people given that, in the end, they basically gave it to you, because we are who we are because somebody loved us anyway.

— Cornel West

We need serious strategic and tactical thinking about how to create new models of leadership and forge the kind of persons to actualize these models.

— Cornel West

Where there is no vital community to hold up precious ethical and religious ideals, there can be no coming to a moral commitment – only personal accomplishment is applauded.

— Cornel West

This market way of life promotes addictions to stimulation and obsessions with comfort and convenience.

— Cornel West

To be humble is to be so sure of one’s self and one’s mission that one can forego calling excessive attention to one’s self and status. And, even more pointedly, to be humble is to revel in the accomplishments or potentials of others – especially those with whom one identifies and to whom one is linked organically.

— Cornel West

King never confined himself to being solely the leader of black America – even though the white press attempted to do so.

— Cornel West

Justice is what Love looks like in public.

— Cornel West

To be a Christian – a follower of Jesus Christ – is to love wisdom, love justice, and love freedom.

— Cornel West

Anytime two human beings find genuine pleasure, joy, and love, the stars smile and the universe is enriched.

— Cornel West

You work through race, you don’t deny race. It’s the difference between being color-blind and love-struck. You see, if I love you, I don’t need to eliminate your whiteness. If you love me, you don’t need to eliminate my blackness. You embrace humanity.

— Cornel West

I’m sure I’ve had my phone tapped for years, I don’t think it’s a crime against humanity they just ought to quit doing it, god damn it.

— Cornel West

Like alcoholism and drug addiction, nihilism is a disease of the soul. It can never be completely cured, and there is always the possibility of relapse. But there is always a chance for conversion – a chance for people to believe that there is hope for the future and a meaning to struggle... Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses; it is tamed by love and care.

— Cornel West

Racial reasoning conceals these presuppositions behind a deceptive cloak of racial consensus – yet racial reasoning is seductive because it invokes an undeniable history of racial abuse and racial struggle.

— Cornel West

The political triumph of Donald Trump is a symbol and symptom – not cause or origin – of our imperial meltdown. Trump is neither alien nor extraneous to American culture and history. In fact, he is as American as apple pie. Yet he is a sign of our spiritual bankruptcy – all spectacle and no substance, all narcissism and no empathy, all appetite and greed and no wisdom and maturity.

— Cornel West

We must not allow our elected officials -many beholden to unaccountable corporate elites- to bastardize and pulverize the precious word democracy as they fail to respect and act on genuine democratic ideals.

— Cornel West

Since the end of the postwar economic boom, certain strategies have been intensified to stimulate consumption, especially strategies aimed at American youth that project sexual activity as instant fulfillment and violence as the locus of machismo identity. This market activity has contributed greatly to the disorientation and confusion of American youth, and those with less education and fewer opportunities bear the brunt of this cultural chaos.

— Cornel West

Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses; it is tamed by love and care. Any disease of the soul must be conquered by a turning of one’s soul. This turning is done through one’s own affirmation of one’s worth – an affirmation fueled by the concern of others. A love ethic must be at the center of a politics of conversion.

— Cornel West

Being a hope is being in motion, on the move with body on the line, mind set on freedom, soul full of courage, and heart shot through with love. Being a hope is forging moral and spiritual fortitude, putting on intellectual armor, and being willing to live and die for the empowerment of the wretched of the earth.

— Cornel West

We are witnessing a rebellion. It’s beautiful to see the qty of protests and the scope and breadth of all colors, all genders, all sexual orientations, all ethnicities and all religious identities in the USA.

— Cornel West
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