500 Quotes by Cornel West

Patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.

I had a passion and love of learning and wisdom that was inseparable from a love of music and the arts. I've never viewed them in any way as being separable.

I think we must never, ever demonize one another. That's true not just black people to black people; that's human being to human being.

Anger can be a bitterness that devours your soul while righteous indignation is morally driven, it's ethically driven.

As human beings, everyone has stuff coming at them, and a certain kind of fear.

I do believe that not just the churches but strong communities, strong trade unions, strong families can make a difference in terms of producing persons much more virtuous than what one usually finds in a gangster culture.

If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf.

When you say that [Martin Luther] King was a prophet, you don't say that he predicted anything; you say that he bore witness. He left a committed life so that people would never forget the suffering of people that he was connected to. King was prophetic because he lived a committed life. Now he did critique society, saying you're going to go under if you don't treat your poor right. I mean, that is part of prophetic calling, but it's not predicting anything.

I would say you have to fight in the life of the mind as well as fight in the streets, as well as fight in the courts, as well as fight in congress and the White House. Every site is a sight of contestation.