Malcolm X
“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.”
“When I’m born I’m black, when I grow up I’m black, when I’m in the sun I’m black, when I’m sick I’m black, when I die I’m black, and you… when you’re born you’re pink, when you grow up you’re white, when you’re cold you’re blue, when you’re sick you’re blue, when you die you’re green and you dare call me colored”
“My alma mater was books, a good library. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”
“If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.”
“To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude towards Afrika becomes more positive, your understanding of and attitude towards yourself will also becomes more positive…”
“When you live in a poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have poor schools. When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When you get a poor education, you can only work in a poor-paying job. And that poor-paying job enables you to live again in a poor neighborhood. So, it’s a very vicious cycle.”
“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”
“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”
“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.”
“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”
“If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.”
“You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
“My alma mater was books, a good library…. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”
“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”
“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”
“If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.”
“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.”
“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”
“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”
“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.”
“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”
“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…”
“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.”
“If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success. ”
“We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.”
“You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace”
“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.”
“I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they’ll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action.”
“Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from birth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.”
“I don’t advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I’ll step on his…”
“I’m sorry to say that the subject I most disliked was mathematics. I have thought about it. I think the reason was that mathematics leaves no room for argument. If you made a mistake, that was all there was to it.”
“Western interests: imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, racism, and other negative -isms.”
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