500 Quotes by Cornel West

Interrogate yours hidden assumptions.

To be a Christian – a follower of Jesus Christ – is to love wisdom, love justice, and love freedom.

The problem is not just affirmative action, though. The problem is poor people, working people and their children, and affirmative action for the most part doesn’t even apply to them.

Nihilism is not overcome by arguments or analyses; it is tamed by love and care. Any disease of the soul must be conquered by a turning of one’s soul. This turning is done through one’s own affirmation of one’s worth – an affirmation fueled by the concern of others. A love ethic must be at the center of a politics of conversion.

I am not optimistic, but I’ve never been optimistic about humankind or America. The evidence never looks good in terms of forces for good actually becoming prominent.

Frederick Douglas’s agenda was an agenda, not for black people to get out of slavery. It was for America to become a better democracy. And it’s spilt over for women’s rights; it’s split over for worker’s rights and so forth.

You work through race, you don’t deny race. It’s the difference between being color-blind and love-struck. You see, if I love you, I don’t need to eliminate your whiteness. If you love me, you don’t need to eliminate my blackness. You embrace humanity.

It’s impossible to translate Wall Street greed into one or two demands.

John Coltrane was an addict; Billie Holiday was an addict; Eugene O’Neill was an addict. What would America be without addicts and post-addicts who make such grand contributions to our society?