Cornel West famous quotes

06-14-2025

Too many young folk have addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth and love.
-- Cornel West

#Justice #Addiction #And Love
I would want to conceive of philosophy as grounded in the very long humanist tradition that is the best of the West, which is open to the East and North and South.
-- Cornel West

#Philosophy #Long #East
We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence.
-- Cornel West

#Inspirational #Relationship #Loyalty
I think hip-hop can be prophetic and progressive, and at the same time, the dominant forms tend to be homophobic, misogynistic and something that we need to critically call into question.
-- Cornel West

#Thinking #Hip Hop #Hips
Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white"-- they would be Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and other engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity. (p. 107-108)
-- Cornel West

#Struggle #Class #White
I was a gangster when I was young. I had a Robin Hood mentality and tended to always want to support the weak against the strong, but sometimes it was cohesive and I really needed to fall in love with the power of education to find the right venue to express my rage. I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes.
-- Cornel West

#Falling In Love #Strong #Support
Patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.
-- Cornel West

#Morning #Struggle #Recovery
For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.
-- Cornel West

#Tone #Musician #Poet
You have to have a habitual vision of greatness ... you have to believe in fact that you will refuse to settle for mediocrity. You won't confuse your financial security with your personal integrity, you won't confuse your success with your greatness or your prosperity with your magnanimity ... believe in fact that living is connected to giving.
-- Cornel West

#Integrity #Believe #Greatness
Homophobia is very, very difficult to root out, to extricate. That's why we have to bear witness. That's why we have to be so public about it, and that's why we can't just play footsie with it.
-- Cornel West

#Play #Roots #Bears
I loathe nationalism. It is a form of tribalism--the idolatry of the 20th century.
-- Cornel West

#Century #Form #Tribalism
I don't draw any distinctions between forms of bigotry or forms of ideology that lose sight of the humanity of people. I can't stand white supremacy. I can't stand male supremacy. I can't stand imperial subjugation. I can't stand homophobia.
-- Cornel West

#Sight #White #People
liberty, which means resisting all forms of cultural authoritarianism, be it from the right wing church, black ideologues, black nationalists, or mainstream white media. We have to accent liberty and freedom of expression and thought in all their forms.
-- Cornel West

#Mean #Media #Expression
I love my gay brothers. I love my lesbian sisters. I love my transvestite, my gender-bending folk. For me, it's a matter of embracing their humanity, allowing them to choose in such a way that they are in the driver's seat regarding their lives.
-- Cornel West

#Brother #Gay #Humanity
The blues arenâ€™t pessimistic. Weâ€™re prisoners of hope but we tell the truth and the truth is dark.
-- Cornel West

#Dark #Pessimistic #Telling The Truth
It is very difficult to sustain a high-quality relationship that has the kind of mutual intensity, that has a kind of mutual respect, without putting in time.
-- Cornel West

#Quality #Kind #Intensity
I grew up in traditional black patriarchal culture and there is no doubt that Iâ€™m going to take a great many unconscious, but present, patriarchal complicities to the grave because it so deeply ensconced in how I look at the world. Therefore, very much like alcoholism, drug addiction, or racism patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.
-- Cornel West

#Morning #Struggle #Recovery
You can't have a high-quality relationship without time and without trust.
-- Cornel West

#Quality #Without Trust
We've been talking about this for a good while, the immorality of drones, dropping bombs on innocent people. It's been over 200 children so far. These are war crimes.
-- Cornel West

#Children #War #Talking
I have some notions that have people conceiving of themselves as capable of changing the world. That's why, for me, the issues of self-love, self-respect and self-regard are preconditions for human agency and especially black agency, given the fact that we have been and are such a hated and despised people.
-- Cornel West

#Agency #Self #Issues
Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public
-- Cornel West

#Justice #Looks #Never Forget
It's no accident that most of the great black spokespersons and leaders understood the centrality of self-affirmation, self-respect and self-love.
-- Cornel West

#Self #Leader #Black
I do believe that healing takes place on a number of different levels and that in fact black healing can be deepened by trying to heal across as well as within. But it could be that to call for black and Jewish healing without acknowledging the need for intra-black healing puts the cart before the horse.
-- Cornel West

#Horse #Believe #Healing
The important thing for me as an educator is how to - how do we unsettle the minds and touch the souls of significant numbers of young people who don't read texts or don't read my texts.
-- Cornel West

#Numbers #People #Soul
I have tried to be a man of letters in love with ideas in order to be a wiser and more loving person, hoping to leave the world just a little better than I found it.
-- Cornel West

#Wise #Men #Order
Music is what we need when language fails us, but we cannot remain silent.
-- Cornel West

#Music #Needs #Language

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