“A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can't play the part of a wise man.”

“How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what is yours?”

“When you have an organization that's neither political nor religious and doesn't take part in the civil rights struggle, what can it call itself? It's in a vacuum.”

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

“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.”

“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.”

“History is a people's memory, and without a memory, a man is demoted to the lower animals.”