Quote

A rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it.

Cornel West

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Cornel West
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: June 2
Actor
Critic
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Writer
Tulsa
Oklahoma
Cornel Ronald West
Cornel R. West
Better
Fundamentally
Consists
Little
Serving
Trying
Leave
Life
Rich
World
Found
Others
Littles

More quotes by Cornel West

Image
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.
Cornel West
Image
As long as hope remains and meaning is preserved, the possibility of overcoming oppression stays alive.
Cornel West
Image
I'm actually with the classics in general in terms of understanding truth in an existential mode. Therefore, philosophy becomes more a way of life as opposed to simply a mode of discourse.
Cornel West
Image
I still have a righteous indignation at injustice, no matter what form it takes. It could be homophobia, it could be white supremacy, male supremacy, imperial arrogance, class subordination or whatever.
Cornel West
Image
Death is always a constant possibility and probability and of course an inevitability, as well.
Cornel West
Image
Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense.
Cornel West
Image
Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice.
Cornel West
Image
There is something about boldness and fearlessness and being free enough to speak what is on one's mind that warrants freedom.
Cornel West
Image
We want to bear witness today that we know the relation between corporate greed and what goes on too often in the Supreme Court decisions.
Cornel West
Image
Anger can be a bitterness that devours your soul while righteous indignation is morally driven, it's ethically driven.
Cornel West
Image
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.
Cornel West
Image
When you love poor people THAT MUCH, when you love 'working people' THAT MUCH, that makes you the freest man/woman in the country. - Cornel West in explaining that Obama is A fulfillment of MLK's dream not THE fulfillment of MLK's dream
Cornel West
Image
To accept your country without betraying it, you must love it for that which shows what it might become. America -- this monument to the genius of ordinary men and women, this place where hope becomes capacity, this long, halting turn of 'no' into the 'yes' -- needs citizens who love it enough to re-imagine and re-make it.
Cornel West
Image
Nobody in my family or in my neighborhood used the language that they used at the University of Chicago. I remember the first time I heard the word value repeated again and again by my professor. Value to me was the price of a frying pan.
Cornel West
Image
The evil is so ubiquitous in terms of objectification of all of us, that one can say that almost about any TV and even radio show.
Cornel West
Image
To be great in our times too often means to have great prosperity and no moral magnanimity at all.
Cornel West
Image
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.
Cornel West
Image
I don't believe in the elimination of evil. But I believe in fightin' against evil.
Cornel West
Image
I love the academy in terms of the life of the mind and the world of ideas. I also love the streets. I love the churches and mosques and synagogues. I love the trade union centers. I love the community centers. I speak regularly at prisons and so forth.
Cornel West
Image
We live in a predatory capitalist society in which everything is for sale. Everybody is for sale, so there is ubiquitous commodification - be it of music, food, people, or parking meters.
Cornel West