Cornel West

King's response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a reevaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens.

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.

Profound music leads us beyond language...to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence.

And when I talk about love, I'm talking about something that's great, though, brother. I'm talking about something that will sustain you.

Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists.

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

Never before has the seductive market way of life held such sway in nearly every sphere of American life. This marketing way of life promotes addictions to stimulation and obsessions with comfort and convenience ... centered primarily around bodily pleasures and status rankings. ... The common denominator is a rugged and ragged individualism and rapacious hedonism in quest of a perennial "high" in body and mind.

If they think they have issues with the president not doing enough for the poor now, wait and see what happens if the opposition takes office. Then they would really need a poverty tour.

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

If you view life as a gold rush, you're going to end up worshiping a golden calf. And when you call for help, and that golden calf can't respond, you go under.

He who learns death unlearns slavery.

Part of the problem is we had so far to go, given the deep homophobia in our society. But, the movement is very real. The movement is very real.

A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue.

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.

I'm an old Coltrane disciple just like I'm a Christian.

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.

Those who came to the United States didn't realize they were white until they got here. They were told they were white. They had to learn they were white. An Irish peasant coming from British imperial abuse in Ireland during the potato famine in the 1840s, arrives in the United States. You ask him or her what they are. They say, "I am Irish." No, you're white. "What do you mean, I am white?" And they point me out. "Oh, I see what you mean. This is a strange land."

I have tried to be a man of letters in love with ideas in order to be a wiser and more loving person, hoping to leave the world just a little better than I found it.

I'm against genocide. I'm against fascism. I'm willing to fight against them so that, in that sense, I think one can still be committed to justice and committed to peace but recognize the circumstances under which one does have to fight.

We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property.

It's never a question of skin pigmentation. It's never a question of just culture or sexual orientation or civilization. It's what kind of human being you're going to choose to be from your mama's womb to the tomb and what kind of legacy will you leave.