Quote

For me the prophetic has to do with mustering the courage to love, to empathize, to exercise compassion, and to be committed to justice.

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
Love
Empathize
Prophetic
Committed
Compassion
Exercise
Courage
Justice

More quotes by Cornel West

Image
None of us alone can save the nation or the world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. (p. 109)
Cornel West
Image
There used to be corporations that produced products. Now there are just banks that produce deals, hedge-fund-driven banks and derivatives and those things.
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
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
Image
I'm a bluesman, which means that I put an emphasis on the minor keys.
Cornel West
Image
When you place a high value on truth, you have to think for yourself.
Cornel West
Image
The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when our divisions are deeper.
Cornel West
Image
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
Image
If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf.
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
We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property, it doesn't leave a whole lot of time for non-market values and non-market activity so that love and trust and justice, concern for the poor, that's being pushed to the margins, and you can see it.
Cornel West
Image
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.
Cornel West
Image
Context shapes who you are.
Cornel West
Image
It takes tremendous discipline, takes tremendous courage, to think for yourself, to examine yourself.
Cornel West
Image
I'm a bluesman moving through a blues-soaked America, a blues-soaked world, a planet where catastrophe and celebration - joy and pain - sit side by side.
Cornel West
Image
You can't move forward until you look back.
Cornel West
Image
Success is such a relative thing for me. I'm fundamentally a Christian which means that ultimately all of the penultimate titles and things you just had to wear with a loose garment. Really.
Cornel West
Image
When you are fundamentally committed to something that is right, you just decide to go down fighting. Period.
Cornel West
Image
So much has to do with going beyond treating black people as cosmetic and symbolic items, as opposed to genuine personalities and human beings. And that is a deep moral and spiritual issue, which can of course be backed up by Civil Rights Commissions which enforce the laws against any form of discrimination.
Cornel West
Image
Martin Luther King was an extremist of love.
Cornel West