Malcolm X

“True Islam taught me that it takes all of the religious, political, economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and the Human Society complete.”

“America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white, but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all together, irrespective of their color.”

“There is nothing in our book, the Qur'an, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”

“I am a Muslim, because it's a religion that teaches you an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It teaches you to respect everybody, and treat everybody right. But it also teaches you if someone steps on your toe, chop off their foot. And I carry my religious axe with me all the time.”

“Let's cool it, brothers.”

“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.”

“Betty's a good Muslim woman and wife. I don't imagine many other women might put up with the way I am. Awakening this brainwashed black man and telling this arrogant, devilish white man the truth about himself, Betty understands, is a full-time job”

“By any means necessary.”

“Do Your Best Work”

“You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.”

“I believe that there will be ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin...”

“To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace”

“Western interests: imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, racism, and other negative -isms.”

“Anytime you find someone more successful than you are, especially when you're both engaged in the same business - you know they're doing something that you aren't.”

“One day, may we all meet together in the light of understanding.”

“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.”

“Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American.”

“You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.”

“I don't advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I'll step on his...”

“أؤمن أن على المرء أن يعيش حياته بالطول والعرض ، وليكن موته عنيفًا”

“As long as you are convinced you have never done anything, you can never do anything.”

“To tell a woman not to talk too much was like telling Jesse James not to carry a gun, or a hen not to cackle.”

“We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.”

“You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress ... No matter how much respect, no matter how much recognition, whites show towards me, as far as I am concerned, as long as it is not shown to everyone of our people in this country, it doesn't exist for me.”

“I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don't believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn't want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn't know how to return the treatment”

“I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading has opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”

“Don't condemn if you see a person has a dirty glass of water, just show them the clean glass of water that you have. When they inspect it, you won't have to say that yours is better." -said by Elijah Muhammad to Malcolm X”

“The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba -- yes Cuba too.”

“Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, fromBirth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.”

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

“If you're not ready to die for it, take the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary.”

“Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.”

“I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream--I see an American nightmare.”

“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”

“I tell sincere white people, 'Work in conjunction with us- each of us working among our own kind.' Let sincere white individuals find all other white people they can who feel as they do- and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist. Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people!We will completely respect our white co-workers. They will deserve every credit. We will give them every credit. We will meanwhile be working among our own kind, in our own black communities- showing and teaching black men in ways that only other black men can- that the black man has got to help himself. Working separately, the sincere white people and sincere black people actually will be working together.In our mutual sincerity we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America's very soul.”

“People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.”

“It"s good to keep wide-open ears and listen to what everybody else has to say, but when you come to make a decision, you have to weigh all of what you"ve heard on its own, and place it where it belongs, and come to a decision for yourself; you"ll never regret it. But if you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you"ll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies.”

“Times change so quickly that if you and I don't keep up with the times, we'll find ourselves with an umbrella in our hand, over our head, when the sun is out. Or we'll find ourselves standing in the rain, with the umbrella inside the door.”

“We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.”

“You get your freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get it. Then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it.”

“Only the mistakes were mine.”

“We all like chicken”

“And because I had been a hustler, I knew better than all whites knew, and better than nearly all of the black 'leaders' knew, that actually the most dangerous black man in America was the ghetto hustler. Why do I say this? The hustler, out there in the ghetto jungles, has less respect for the white power structure than any other Negro in North America. The ghetto hustler is internally restrained by nothing. He has no religion, no concept of morality, no civic responsibility, no fear--nothing. To survive, he is out there constantly preying upon others, probing for any human weakness like a ferret. The ghetto hustler is forever frustrated, restless, and anxious for some 'action'. Whatever he undertakes, he commits himself to it fully, absolutely. What makes the ghetto hustler yet more dangerous is his 'glamour' image to the school-dropout youth in the ghetto.These ghetto teen-agers see the hell caught by their parents struggling to get somewhere, or see that they have given up struggling in the prejudiced, intolerant white man’s world. The ghetto teen-agers make up their own minds they would rather be like the hustlers whom they see dressed ‘sharp’ and flashing money and displaying no respect for anybody or anything. So the ghetto youth become attracted to the hustler worlds of dope, thievery, prostitution, and general crime and immorality.”

“In fact, once he is motivated no one can change more completely than the man who has been at the bottom. I call myself the best example of that.”

“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”

“It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come. ”

“I Used the Word 'Negro' and I was Firmly Corrected”

“It's just like when you've got some coffee that's too black, which means it's too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won't even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.”

“Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.”

“If you have no critics you'll likely have no success. ”