Of course, the aim of a constitutional democracy is to safeguard the rights of the minority and avoid the tyranny of the majority. (p. 102)
CORNEL WESTFrederick 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.
More Cornel West Quotes
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I’m actually with the classics in general in terms of understanding truth in an existential mode. Therefore, philosophy becomes more a way of life as opposed to simply a mode of discourse.
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As human beings, everyone has stuff coming at them, and a certain kind of fear.
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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.
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confining life to an eternal present is an insidious form of soul murder
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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.
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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?
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I loathe nationalism. It is a form of tribalism–the idolatry of the 20th century.
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Rage is fine as long as it doesn’t deteriorate into bitterness.
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Being a Christian is not a political orientation for the president, but he is a centrist.
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Hey, you got something going here. I think we’ve got a chance for some progressive policy that actually focuses on poor and working people.
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Anger can be a bitterness that devours your soul while righteous indignation is morally driven, it’s ethically driven.
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When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots.
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We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence.
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Truth is fine. Absolutely.
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We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property.
CORNEL WEST







