Quotes from Cornel West

You must let suffering speak, if you want to hear the truth

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.

Drew Dellinger is one of the most creative, courageous and prophetic poets of his generation. I love his spirit. Don't miss him!

Hatred of injustice is not the same thing as a love for everyday people.

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.

We live in a world where people are fearful of extremism, but Martin Luther King would say he was always trying to keep the flow of love in place. In that sense, he turned the world on its head.

Martin Luther King was an extremist of love.

For me the prophetic has to do with mustering the courage to love, to empathize, to exercise compassion, and to be committed to justice.

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

Some people don't want to be morally consistent. They just want to be tied to their one issue.

There is no fundamental social change by being simply of individual and interpersonal actions. You have to have organizations and institutions that make a fundamental difference.

We will not allow this day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial to go without somebody going to jail.

We've been talking about this for a good while, the immorality of drones, dropping bombs on innocent people. It's been over 200 children so far. These are war crimes.

The problem is we need much more moral content.

There has certainly been ugly, right-wing hatred targeting Barack Obama.

Philosophy is in fact a quest for wisdom based in sophia; that quest for wisdom has everything to do with a love of wisdom.

Now, myself, I'm not a pacifist at all. I believe in just war. I would have joined the spirit of the nation to fight against apartheid.

I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.'

There's simply no philosophizing without a love of wisdom, absolutely.

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.

A philosopher's a lover of wisdom.

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.

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.

The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they simply want what most people want, to be judged by the quality of their skills, not by the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis.