When you are fundamentally committed to something that is right, you just decide to go down fighting. Period.

Courage is the enabling virtue for any philosopher - for any human being, I think, in the end. Courage to think, courage to love, courage to hope.

Every empire suffers from hubris, arrogance and condescension, and therefore a moral blindness. That's true of the American empire, it was true of the British Empireearlier, and it will certainly be true of the Chinese Empire in the future.

The most dangerous thing in American society is a self-respecting and self-loving black person, because they're on the road to freedom and that means they're gonna run up against the powers that be.

The black church often has reinforced certain self images that are damaging to black peoples' beauty, black peoples' confidence.

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.

Philosophy is fundamentally about how you come to terms with living your life and trying to do it in a wise manner, and, for me, that means decently and compassionately and courageously and so forth.