When parents see their children's problems as opportunities to build the relationship instead of as negative, burdensome irritations, it totally changes the nature of parent-child interaction. Parents become more willing, even excited, about deeply understanding and helping their children. . . . This paradigm is powerful in business as well.

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Little kindness and courtesies are so important. In relationships, the little things are the big things.

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When you teach black people that they are less beautiful, less moral, less intelligent, and as a result you defer to the white supremacist status quo, you rationalize your accommodation to the status quo, you lose your fire, you become much more tied to producing foliage, what appears to be the case. - Cornel West

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Black people have been working hard for decades. - Cornel West

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The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

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When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.

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A man's respect for law and order exists in precise relationship to the size of his paycheck.

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The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

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Today I will stop trying to control my relationships. I will participate at a reasonable level and let the other person do the same. I can let go, knowing that the relationship will find its own life-or not-and that I don't have to do all the work, only my share.

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Part of the popularity with Louis Farrakhan has less to do with the content of his message and more to do with the form that he portrays himself - as being a free black person who speaks what is on his mind with boldness and fearlessness. Who is willing to pay the consequences. - Cornel West

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