When you love people, you give them a priority. You have a…

“When you love people, you give them a priority. You have a sense of urgency about their pain.”

Cornel West

About This Quote

This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation.

Prioritizing loved ones means responding quickly to their suffering, showing empathy and urgency.

In simple terms: Love means acting fast on others' pain.

Key Takeaway

Act with urgency for those you love.

Themes

empathy relationships urgency

Mood

compassionate reflective

Type

advice philosophical

When to use this quote

caring for a sick friend
supporting a grieving family
helping a partner in crisis

Key Concepts

ethical responsibility emotional intelligence

Questions to Reflect On

How do you balance personal needs with others' pain?
What limits your urgency in helping loved ones?

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Giving Love Pain People Priorities Sense of urgency Urgency

More by Cornel West

There has certainly been ugly, right-wing hatred targeting Barack Obama.

Cornel West

What is accurately portrayed is the rich humanity not just of Martin Luther King but of the movement, which was a multiracial movement. You…

Cornel West

I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.'

Cornel West

“Like King, we need to put on our cemetery clothes and be coffin-ready for the next great democratic battle.”

Cornel West

“You can't really move forward until you look back. [From Remaking America panel discussion at George Washington University]”

Cornel West

When we think of globalization we are thinking in part of structures and institutions that have been developed over time and that have allowed…

Cornel West

The challenge artists face today is whether to be an underground, unheard genius, or to dilute their art for the marketplace.

Cornel West

The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they…

Cornel West

For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.

Cornel West

I don't draw any distinctions between forms of bigotry or forms of ideology that lose sight of the humanity of people. I can't stand…

Cornel West

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…

Cornel West

Larry Summers, I think, he had a long history of arrogance and relative ignorance about poor people's culture and working people's culture and so…

Cornel West

The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of inspiration.

Cornel West

You can see it in terms of the obsession on Wall Street with not just profits but greed, more profit, more profit.

Cornel West

Anybody who takes Martin Luther King seriously has got to go beyond the standard understanding of who he was, has to connect those dots.

Cornel West

Explore all 400 Cornel West quotes

More Giving quotes

Only within yourself exists the other reality for which you long. I can give you nothing that has not already its being within yourself.…

Hermann Hesse

The only people who think the Internet is a calamity are people whose lives have been hurt by it; the only people who insist…

Chuck Klosterman

True works of art contain their own theory and give us the measurement according to which we should judge them.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Crony capitalism is essentially a condition in which... public officials are giving favours to people in the private sector in payment of political favours.

Alan Greenspan

Some people give you that motivation to work harder simply to get the hell away from wherever they are.

Dane Cook

You've touched people and known it. You've touched people and never may know it. Either way, you have something to give. It is in…

Laura Schlessinger

I understand that it's the music that keeps me alive... That's my lifeblood. And to give that up for, like, the TV, the cars,…

Bruce Springsteen

I received a beautiful welcome to the world of music. I want to give something back to the younger generation.

Luciano Pavarotti

Eternal Trinity... mystery deep as the sea, You could give me no greater gift than the gift of Yourself. For You are a fire…

St. Catherine of Siena

Faith gives you a certain structure and meaning to your life.

Riffat Hassan

Grandma, please. It’s okay. Dad’s doing a great job. I give him kudos for at least being calm and rational, and not losing his…

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Most paper money initially existed as a substitute for gold. That's what gave it value. But right now what gives a currency value is…

Peter Schiff

Practically all animals which move fast in a homogeneous medium have found means of giving their body a streamlined shape, thereby reducing friction to…

Konrad Lorenz