"There is a price to pay for speaking the truth. There is a bigger price for living a lie."
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Quote collection
Cornel West quotes (page 1 of 18)
353 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"The country is in deep trouble. We've forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that's the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word."
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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."
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"Hope and optimism are different. Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there's enough evidence out there to believe things are gonna be better, much more rational, deeply secular, whereas hope looks at the evidence and says, "It doesn't look good at all. Doesn't look good at all. Gonna go beyond the evidence to create new possibilities based on visions that become contagious to allow people to engage in heroic actions always against the odds, no guarantee whatsoever." That's hope. I'm a prisoner of hope, though. Gonna die a prisoner of hope."
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"You have to have a habitual vision of greatness ... you have to believe in fact that you will refuse to settle for mediocrity. You won't confuse your financial security with your personal integrity, you won't confuse your success with your greatness or your prosperity with your magnanimity ... believe in fact that living is connected to giving."
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"Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public"
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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."
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"Too many young folk have addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth and love."
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"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)"
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"The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of inspiration."
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"We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence."
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"We are who we are because somebody loved us."
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"A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue."
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"The love of wisdom is a way of life; that is to say, it's a set of practices that have to do with mustering the courage to think critically about ourselves, society, and the world; mustering the courage to empathize; the courage, I would say, to love; the courage to have compassion with others, especially the widow and the orphan, the fatherless and the motherless, poor and working peoples, gays and lesbians, and so forth - and the courage to hope."
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"To be human, at the most profound level, is to encounter honestly the inescapable circumstances that constrain us, yet muster the courage to struggle compassionately for our own unique individualities and for more democratic and free societies."
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"The condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak, it means then that if you have a prophetic sensibility, you are committed to loving others and if you love others, you hate injustice."
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"The basic problem with my love relationships with women is that my standards are so high - and they apply equally to both of us. I seek full-blast mutual intensity, fully fledged mutual acceptance, full-blown mutual flourishing, and fully felt peace and joy with each other. This requires a level of physical attraction, personal adoration, and moral admiration that is hard to find."
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"You've got to love yourself enough, not only so that others will be able to love you, but that you'll be able to love others."
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"Justice is what love looks like in public."
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"My dear brother Barack Obama has a certain fear of free black men. As a young brother who grows up in a white context, brilliant African father, he's always had to fear being a white man with black skin. All he has known culturally is white. He has a certain rootlessness, a deracination."
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