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Cornel West

Cornel West Quotes

Philosopher

Cornel West is a renowned American philosopher, political activist, and author. He is known for his profound insights into race, class, and culture, particularly on issues of American society and politics. His writings and speeches often delve into themes of justice, freedom, and democracy.

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All People Black Poor Thinking Kings Ifs World Luther Trying Way

Famous Cornel West Quotes

“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.”

Way Reading Pleasure Alive Conversation Sitting Pleasures Of Life Beckett Chekhov

Author:Cornel West

“It's true that you might be socially isolated because you're reading in the library, at home and so on, but you're intensely alive. In fact you're much more alive than these folk walking the streets of New York in crowds, with no intellectual interrogation and questioning going at all.”

Facts Home Might Reading Alive Streets New York Walking Intellectual Library Folks Crowds Isolated Questioning Interrogation

Author:Cornel West

“The courage to be is the most difficult thing for any human being.”

Humans Difficult Human Beings Difficult Things

Book:Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America

Source: Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America

“Rage is fine as long as it doesn't deteriorate into bitterness.”

Long Fine Rage Bitterness

Author:Cornel West

“There is always a very delicate interplay between individual actions and institutional conditions.”

Action Individual Conditions Delicate

Author:Cornel West

“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.”

Action Individual Responsibility Conditions Personal Responsibility

Author:Cornel West

“There is no fundamental social change by being simply of individual and interpersonal actions. You have to have organizations and institutions that make a fundamental difference.”

Action Individual Social Differences Organization Institutions Fundamentals Social Change Interpersonal

Author:Cornel West

“There is no organizations and institutions that are worthwhile in terms of fighting for and dying for unless there is some individual integrity and character and virtue that is at work within various individuals in those institutions especially their leaders.”

Character Fighting Individual Term Leader Virtue Dying Integrity Organization Institutions Various Worthwhile Integrity And Character

Author:Cornel West

“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.”

Mind Persons Form Speak Black Pay Willing Messages Consequence Popularity Boldness Fearlessness Black Person

Author:Cornel West

“There is something about boldness and fearlessness and being free enough to speak what is on one's mind that warrants freedom.”

Mind Enough Speak Boldness Fearlessness Being Free Warrants

Author:Cornel West

“When black America is on the move, America is on the move.”

America Moving Black Black America

Author:Cornel West

“The problem is that affirmative action could never really get at the issue of corporate power in the workplace, and so you ended up with the downsizing; you ended up with de-industrializing. You ended up with the marginalizing of working people and working poor people even while affirmative action was taking place, and a new black middle class was expanding.”

People Problem Action Black Poor Class Issues Middle Corporate Middle Class Workplace Poor People Expanding Affirmative Action Affirmative Downsizing

Author:Cornel West

“Affirmative action is something that I think is very crucial and necessary.”

Thinking Action Crucial Affirmative Action Affirmative

Author:Cornel West

“When you think of 244 years of slavery and 81 years of that finally you are going to be allowed to be part of the pool from which people choose jobs. That's not a substantive kind of move, but it was very important.”

People Thinking Years Kind Important Jobs Moving Slavery Pool

Author:Cornel West

“I think anytime we talk about transforming in capitalist society, we are talking about a process not a particular event so you can't talk about a socialist revolution.”

Thinking Process Talking Events Particular Revolution Capitalist Socialist Transforming

Author:Cornel West

“I think markets are mechanisms that determine prices that are necessary for mass heterogenous populations, and markets do generate levels of technological innovation and productivity that is crucial. But when unregulated, they often generate levels of vast inequality and ugly isolation that makes it difficult for people to relate and connect with one another.”

People Thinking Difficult Levels Mass Innovation Population Determine Ugly Productivity Inequality Relate Isolation Crucial Mechanism Technological

Author:Cornel West

“The question is really how do we think seriously about this mechanism called a market. It ought to be determining not values but prices.”

Thinking Values Ought Mechanism

Author:Cornel West

“The problem is that in America is that the nation state has been so weak when it comes to the history of big markets the history of big business in a way so we have a very weak welfare state compared to European nation states.”

Way Has Beens States Problem Bigs America Nations Weak Welfare Big Business Welfare State

Author:Cornel West

“No community dictates to any individual how to live their lives. You can criticize and you can push but people freely choose.”

People Individual Community Criticize

Author:Cornel West

“We can't have a freedom struggle without free choice.”

Choices Struggle Free Choice

Author:Cornel West

“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.”

Mind Wells Fighting House White Streets Sight Court Congress White House Site

Author:Cornel West

“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.”

Mind Spiritual Form Political Economic Goes On Battle Intellectual Various Flying Crucial Bullets Symbolic Battlefields Literal Weaponry

Author:Cornel West

“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.”

People Thinking Humans Black Human Beings Black People

Author:Cornel West

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

Possibility Changed Pale Disrespect

Author:Cornel West

“It's so easy to begin to demonize someone you think is so far removed and as the demonization begins to expand, it ends up being everybody but your friends. After a while everybody else but you. That is a slippery slope that is so easy to slide down, and that's what is dangerous.”

Thinking Ends Easy Dangerous Down And Slides Slippery Slopes Slippery Slope

Author:Cornel West

“There ought to be a robust, uninhibited conversation in black America with different black ideological perspectives.”

Different America Black Perspective Ought Conversation Ideological Robust Black America

Author:Cornel West

“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.”

Mean Christian Titles Relative Garments

Author:Cornel West

“If you can't have a good time and smile and relate to people across race and class, then the success that you have ultimately is just sounding brass and tinkling symbol.”

People Ifs Race Class Symbols Relate Good Times Having A Good Time Brass

Author:Cornel West

“Life is such a mysterious thing that you are up one day; you are down the next day. A lot of the homeless brothers and sisters who were a success ten years ago, they are now on the street. Maybe ten years later they will be a success, but the crucial question is what is the quality of their life.”

Years Life Is Next Quality Streets Brother One Day Ten Years Ago Mysterious Crucial Homeless Next Day Brothers And Sisters Mysterious Things

Author:Cornel West

“If you are always trying to do something for a cause bigger than you - connected with serving others - then it is hard to be guilty.”

Ifs Trying Hard Causes Bigger Connected Guilty Serving Always Trying Serving Others

Author:Cornel West

“If the churches don't move, much of the community won't move. We've got a situation in which a black church is still a major institution in the black community where 55 percent of the black folk attend and over 75 pass through its doors.”

Ifs Stills Moving Black Community Church Situation Doors Majors Percent Institutions Folks Black Community Black Church

Author:Cornel West

“The black church is dormant, much of the community is dormant. If the black church is leaning toward the right, much of the community is leaning toward the right. If it is leaning in the left wing direction having repercussions.”

Ifs Left Black Community Church Wings Left Wing Repercussions Dormant Leaning In Black Church

Author:Cornel West

“I do believe that not just the churches but strong communities, strong trade unions, strong families can make a difference in terms of producing persons much more virtuous than what one usually finds in a gangster culture.”

Believe Persons Culture Strong Term Community Differences Church Trade Unions Making A Difference Virtuous Gangsters Trade Unions Strong Family Strong Community

Author:Cornel West

“I am not optimistic, but I've never been optimistic about humankind or America. The evidence never looks good in terms of forces for good actually becoming prominent.”

Looks America Force Term Becoming Evidence Optimistic Humankind Prominent

Author:Cornel West

“When you are fundamentally committed to something that is right, you just decide to go down fighting. Period.”

Fighting Periods Committed

Author:Cornel West

“I wished the president [Barack Obama] were more "Martin Luther King-like."”

President Kings Barack Luther President Barack Obama

Author:Cornel West

“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.”

Whole Values Justice Pleasure Poor Activity Concern Property Driven Selling Obsessed Buying Margins Love And Trust Buying And Selling

Author:Cornel West

“You can see it in terms of the obsession on Wall Street with not just profits but greed, more profit, more profit.”

Term Streets Wall Greed Profit Obsession

Author:Cornel West

“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.”

Matter Jobs Interest Common Becoming Citizens Skills Models Concerned Educational Critical Access Suburbs Common Good Educational System Public Interest Vanilla

Author:Cornel West

“It's a spiritual malnutrition tied to a moral constipation, where people have a sense of what's right and what's good. It's just stuck, and they can't get it out because there's too much greed. There's too much obsession with reputation and addiction to narrow conceptions of success.”

People Spiritual Moral Too Much Addiction Greed Stuck Obsession Reputation Conception Tied Malnutrition Constipation

Author:Cornel West

“We look at the legacy of Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells and Ella Baker, Malcolm X and Martin King. We have, and part of the struggle now in the age of [Barack] Obama is how do we keep alive the legacy of Martin King?”

Wells Looks Age Struggle Alive Kings Barack Legacy Bakers

Author:Cornel West

“I know my dear brother, President [Barack] Obama, has a bust of Martin King right there in the Oval Office, but the question is are is he going to be true to who that Martin Luther King, Jr., actually is? King was concerned about what? The poor. He was concerned about working people. He was concerned about quality jobs. He was concerned about quality housing. He was concerned about precious babies in Vietnam, the way we ought to be concerned about precious babies in Afghanistan and precious babies in Tel Aviv and precious babies in Gaza.”

People Knows Way Jobs President Poor Quality Brother Baby Ought Kings Office Concerned Dear Being True Barack Afghanistan Vietnam Housing Luther President Barack Obama Gaza Oval Dear Brother

Author:Cornel West

“Martin King was fundamentally committed to the least of these [poor, working people]. Of course, he was a Christian soldier for justice from the 25th chapter of Matthew.”

People Christian Courses Justice Poor Kings Soldier Committed Chapters Matthew

Author:Cornel West

“So more and more black folk tend to be well-adjusted to [Barack] Obama's presidency, but does that mean they're well-adjusted to injustice? Because we don't hear our president talking about the new Jim Crow, the prison-industrial complex.”

Wells Mean Doe Black President Talking Prison Complexes Injustice Folks Barack Presidency Crow Jim Crow

Author:Cornel West

“We don't hear our president [Barack Obama] talking about the need for high-quality jobs for everybody, giving it priority, not just giving a speech in Detroit. That's fine, but speaking to Tim Geithner, speaking to Larry Summers. When are you going to make jobs, jobs, jobs a priority rather than Wall Street, Wall Street, Wall Street a priority? That's what I'm concerned about.”

Needs Giving Jobs President Quality Talking Streets Wall Fine Speech Summer Concerned Priorities Barack Detroit Larry President Barack Obama High Quality

Author:Cornel West

“Does he have a double standard for black critics as opposed to white critics?”

Doe Black White Standards Critics Double Standard

Author:Cornel West

“Frank Rich, Paul Krugman, Maureen Dowd, a whole host of brilliant, courageous critics say all kinds of things, and he [Barack Obama] treats them with respect. They get invited to the White House. I say the same thing, he talks to me like I'm a Cub Scout.”

Kind Whole House White Rich Treats Critics Brilliant All Kinds Barack Courageous White House Host Frank Invited Talk To Me Cubs Cub Scout

Author:Cornel West

“Going all the way back to Jeremiah Wright and Tavis Smiley and Van Jones and even Shirley Sherrod and maybe even Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel. We're going to see what his [Barack Obama] response is.”

Way Water Response Barack Vans Smiley Jeremiah

Author:Cornel West

“I'm praying for Barack Obama to stay on the tightrope because I want to fight his right-wing critics. I want to down I want to ensure they don't lie about him. I'm sure they don't demonize him, and too much of that is going on. So I don't want my critiques to be in any way confused with the right-wing critiques, even though I'll fight for the right wing to be wrong in that regard.”

Way Want Lying Fighting Too Much Praying Regard Wings Critics Barack Confused Critique Right Wing Don't Lie

Author:Cornel West

“Jesus loves a free black man.”

Men Jesus Black Jesus Love

Author:Cornel West

About the Author

Born: June 2, 1953
Known for: Philosopher
Quotes: 380

Related Topics

People Black Poor Thinking Kings Ifs World Luther Trying Way

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Race MattersRelated source material

The Cornel West ReaderRelated source material

Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual LifeRelated source material

Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against ImperialismRelated source material

Black Prophetic FireRelated source material

Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, a MemoirRelated source material

Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black AmericaRelated source material

Brother WestRelated source material

Race Matters: With a New IntroductionRelated source material

Prophetic FragmentsRelated source material

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