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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.

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
Says
Craft
Take
Crafts
Must
Priorities
Fundamental
Fundamentals
Coltrane
John
Decency
Honesty
Priority
Integrity
Mastery

More quotes by Cornel West

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I don't believe in the elimination of evil. But I believe in fightin' against evil.
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There's a number of hip-hop artists who are highly talented but politically retrograde.
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Anybody who takes Martin Luther King seriously has got to go beyond the standard understanding of who he was, has to connect those dots.
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Rage is fine as long as it doesn't deteriorate into bitterness.
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If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf.
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As human beings, everyone has stuff coming at them, and a certain kind of fear.
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When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots.
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Black people have been working hard for decades.
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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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The legacy of [Martin Luther] King is the very thing that must be expanded if America is to be free and democratic in the 21st century. It's just as simple as that.
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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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Certainly Martin Luther King, in the mainstream perception of him, had a dream. Yes, he did. But the question becomes, what was that dream? It wasn't the American Dream. It was a dream that all human beings, especially poor and working people, be treated with dignity.
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The most dangerous thing in American society is a self-respecting and self-loving black person, because they're on the road to freedom and that means they're gonna run up against the powers that be.
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We are a democracy and we don't believe in just hunting down gangsters and killing them. We believe in trying to find the gangsters and bring them back for trial, and give them a trial under rule of law. That's what democracies do.
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Rap is just a movement within the larger culture of hip-hop.
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Sometime you just need to be silent, have a drink and crack a smile or somethin', because the human condition, in general, is just overwhelming in so many ways.
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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.
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Justice is what love looks like in public.
Cornel West
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A rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it.
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In a time in which Communist regimes have been rightfully discredited and yet alternatives to neoliberal capitalist societies are unwisely dismissed, I defend the fundamental claim of Marxist theory: there must be countervailing forces that defend people's needs against the brutality of profit driven capitalism.
Cornel West