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It takes tremendous discipline, takes tremendous courage, to think for yourself, to examine yourself.

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
Thinking
Examine
Tremendous
Discipline
Courage
Takes
Think

More quotes by Cornel West

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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.
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I don't believe in the elimination of evil. But I believe in fightin' against evil.
Cornel West
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When you place a high value on truth, you have to think for yourself.
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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.
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Rap is just a movement within the larger culture of hip-hop.
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Poor people can be greedy, too. It's just that they don't have any material resources. We need shaping of the souls as well as shaping of our institutions.
Cornel West
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Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense.
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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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You can't move forward until you look back.
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A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue.
Cornel West
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Empathy is not simply a matter of trying to imagine what others are going through, but having the will to muster enough courage to do something about it. In a way, empathy is predicated upon hope.
Cornel West
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Larry Summers, I think, he had a long history of arrogance and relative ignorance about poor people's culture and working people's culture and so forth.
Cornel West
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There is something about boldness and fearlessness and being free enough to speak what is on one's mind that warrants freedom.
Cornel West
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You can't talk about truth without talking about learning how to die because it's precisely by learning how to die, examining yourself and transforming your old self into a better self, that you actually live more intensely and critically and abundantly.
Cornel West
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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
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To be great in our times too often means to have great prosperity and no moral magnanimity at all.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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There's simply no philosophizing without a love of wisdom, absolutely.
Cornel West
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Martin Luther King was a radical democrat, by which I mean someone who is a foe of wealth inequality.
Cornel West
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Our problem is that we don't have enough people in America, including black people, who are progressive and willing to sacrifice their popularity in order to tell the truth.
Cornel West