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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.

Cornel West

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Cornel West
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: June 2
Actor
Critic
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Tulsa
Oklahoma
Cornel Ronald West
Cornel R. West
Born
Worms
Death
Culinary
Two
Delight
Body
Creatures
Feces
Toward
Linguistically
Beings
Urine
Conscious
Terrestrial
Whose
Legged

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To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.
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When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots. They can't get away with their abuse. They can't get away with subjection. They can't get away with subjugation. They can't get away with exploitation. They can't get away with domination. It takes courage for folk to stand up.
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There ought to be a robust, uninhibited conversation in black America with different black ideological perspectives.
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To be great in our times too often means to have great prosperity and no moral magnanimity at all.
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There is always a very delicate interplay between individual actions and institutional conditions.
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Part of the problem is we had so far to go, given the deep homophobia in our society. But, the movement is very real. The movement is very real.
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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.
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Prophetic pragmatism attempts to keep alive the sense of alternative ways of life and of struggle based on the best of the past. In this sense, the praxis of prophetic pragmatism is tragic action with revolutionary intent, usually reformist consequences and always visionary outlook.
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It's fashionable to be indifferent to other people's suffering
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The wonderful thing about the black church for me is that it forces you to come to terms with the centrality of love in the world.
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The only countervailing force against organized money at the top, is organized people at the bottom.
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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.
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I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft.
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We must never so thoroughly disrespect someone that they are beyond the pale and, therefore, have no possibility of being changed.
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Drew Dellinger is one of the most creative, courageous and prophetic poets of his generation. I love his spirit. Don't miss him!
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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.
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This is what it is for Asians to be part of - support affirmative action, even though it may be against their interest, but they feel it's a matter of justice.
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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.
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Playboy has a long history of high-quality interviews along with the objectification of women, and so I think she does have a point there. I don't think that the words are necessarily nullified. It's just that that context is something you ought to be suspicious of.
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You must let suffering speak, if you want to hear the truth
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