Cornel West Quotes

Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense.

The important thing for me as an educator is how to - how do we unsettle the minds and touch the souls of significant numbers of young people who don't read texts or don't read my texts.

And as a Christian, I got something the world didn't give me, the world can't take away, so I find joy that can never be reduced to anything.

The black church often has reinforced certain self images that are damaging to black peoples' beauty, black peoples' confidence.

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.

I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft.

Michael Jackson was part of that tremendous wave in the ocean of human expression and it happened to be located first and foremost in Gary, Indiana, working class.

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.

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

Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.

You can't really move forward until you look back.[From Remaking America panel discussion at George Washington University]

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

It is a beautiful thing to be on fire for justice… there is no greater joy than inspiring and empowering others––especially the least of these, the precious and priceless wretched of the earth!

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme. --Aristotle

As long as you're scared you're on the plantation.

This market way of life promotes addictions to stimulation and obsessions with comfort and convenience.