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I remind young people everywhere I go, one of the worst things the older generation did was to tell them for twenty-five years "Be successful, be successful, be successful" as opposed to "Be great, be great, be great". There's a qualitative difference.

— Cornel West

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More quotes by Cornel West

You can't lead the people if you don't love the people. You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people.

Hope on a Tightrope: Words and Wisdom (2008)

Justice is what love looks like in public.

Brother West (2009)

In situations of sparse resources along with degraded self-images and depoliticized sensibilities, one avenue for poor people is in existential rebellion and anarchic expression. The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.

To be a Christian - a follower of Jesus Christ - is to love wisdom, love justice, and love freedom. (p172)

Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism (2004)

This market way of life promotes addictions to stimulation and obsessions with comfort and convenience. (p29)

Race Matters (1993)

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We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.

Doris Lessing The Golden Notebook (1962)

To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.

Confucius

Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power.

Martin Buber Between Man and Man (1965)

The weak shows his strength and hides his weaknesses; the magnificent exhibits his weaknesses like ornaments.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Cornel West (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.