Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.
You can see it in terms of the obsession on Wall Street with not just profits but greed, more profit, more profit.
A rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it.
Profound music leads us beyond language...to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence.
There ought to be a robust, uninhibited conversation in black America with different black ideological perspectives.
Anger can be a bitterness that devours your soul while righteous indignation is morally driven, it's ethically driven.
Isabel Wilkerson's book is a masterful narrative of the rich wisdom and deep courage of a great people. Don't miss it!
We have a market-driven society so obsessed with buying and selling and obsessed with power and pleasure and property.
Martin Luther King wanted to be morally consistent and speak out against various things that were wrong, not just racism.
Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice.
All individuals have the same value, not to be determined by market price. They're made in the image and likeness of God.
Martin Luther King Jr. was not just a man of peace. He was a radical pacifist, and so he was against war across the board.
Fire really means a certain kind of burning in the soul that one can no longer tolerate when one is pushed against a wall.
It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.
I don't know of a great artist who did not sacrifice and thereby have to wrestle with the depths of loneliness and sadness.
Philosophy is in fact a quest for wisdom based in sophia; that quest for wisdom has everything to do with a love of wisdom.
The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.
I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.'
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.
No community dictates to any individual how to live their lives. You can criticize and you can push but people freely choose.
There is something about boldness and fearlessness and being free enough to speak what is on one's mind that warrants freedom.
I think philosophy is all about lived experience, which is to say life in the streets, life in a variety of different contexts.
Drew Dellinger is one of the most creative, courageous and prophetic poets of his generation. I love his spirit. Don't miss him!
The black church often has reinforced certain self images that are damaging to black peoples' beauty, black peoples' confidence.
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.
Barack Obama has domesticated the left in such a way that we feel as if we have no alternative but him...I refuse to accept that.
We must never so thoroughly disrespect someone that they are beyond the pale and, therefore, have no possibility of being changed.
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.
The evil is so ubiquitous in terms of objectification of all of us, that one can say that almost about any TV and even radio show.
Patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.
The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when our divisions are deeper.
You don't begin by dehumanizing those who are dehumanizing you, because it contributes to the cycle of dehumanization in the world.
If you are always trying to do something for a cause bigger than you - connected with serving others - then it is hard to be guilty.
You've got to be a thermostat rather than a thermometer. A thermostat shapes the climate of opinion; a thermometer just reflects it.
Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense.
I take my fundamental cue from John Coltrane that says there must be a priority of integrity, honesty, decency, and mastery of craft.
We are intent on building a movement. The next step is grassroots town meetings. We must keep alive the dialogue around the covenants.
I think we must never, ever demonize one another. That's true not just black people to black people; that's human being to human being.
Too many young folk have addiction to superficial things and not enough conviction for substantial things like justice, truth and love.
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.
For me the prophetic has to do with mustering the courage to love, to empathize, to exercise compassion, and to be committed to justice.
The question is really how do we think seriously about this mechanism called a market. It ought to be determining not values but prices.
Anybody who takes Martin Luther King seriously has got to go beyond the standard understanding of who he was, has to connect those dots.
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.
We want to bear witness today that we know the relation between corporate greed and what goes on too often in the Supreme Court decisions.
None of us alone can save the nation or the world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. (p. 109)
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)
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.
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.
what I think separates me from most philosophers probably is that I'm a bluesman in the life of the mind, I'm a jazzman in the world of ideas.