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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.

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
Hard
Trying
Serving
Something
Guilty
Always
Connected
Bigger
Cause
Causes
Others

More quotes by Cornel West

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I always felt called to serve, to empower and ennoble as many people as I could, teaching, truth-telling, exposing lies, bearing witness, and being willing to live and die for something bigger than yourself.
Cornel West
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The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of inspiration.
Cornel West
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Well technologically and so forth, it's a breakthrough, and yet [Birth of a Nation,] it's very white supremacist to the core in terms of the narrative content.
Cornel West
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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
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Context shapes who you are.
Cornel West
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If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf.
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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Justice is what love looks like in public.
Cornel West
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A black agenda is jobs, jobs, jobs, quality education, investment in infrastructure and strong democratic regulation of corporations. The black agenda, at its best, looks at America from the vantage point of the least of these and asks what's best for all.
Cornel West
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I couldn't live without the genius of Stephen Sondheim, be it not just West Side Story,but Follies,Company,Sweeney Todd,Passion.You can go on and on.
Cornel West
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You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people if you don't serve the people.
Cornel West
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Martin Luther King was not a Marxist or a communist, but his radical love leads him to put poor and working people at the center.
Cornel West
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So more and more black folk tend to be well-adjusted to [Barack] Obama's presidency, but does that mean they're well-adjusted to injustice? Because we don't hear our president talking about the new Jim Crow, the prison-industrial complex.
Cornel West
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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
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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
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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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Philosophy is in fact a quest for wisdom based in sophia that quest for wisdom has everything to do with a love of wisdom.
Cornel West
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There is no such thing as institutional conditions without any individual actions and no such thing as individual action without institutional conditions. So there is always personal responsibility.
Cornel West
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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.
Cornel West
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There are various forms of weaponry, intellectual weaponry, spiritual weaponry, political weaponry, economic weaponry. Because we are on the battlefield, and there are bullets flying, some symbolic, some literal and the life of the mind is a crucial place where the battle goes on.
Cornel West