'A Man Who Stands for Nothing Will Fall for Anything'—Here Are 150 of the Best Malcolm X Quotes
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'A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.'
The history of civil rights leader and activist Malcolm X is so often muddled by his portrayal in mainstream media. Husband. Father. Speaker. Activist. Radical. Peacemaker. Leader. Throughout the course of his life, he played many roles to many different people in a multitude of ways. And yet when children in America's public schools are first introduced to Malcolm, it's through the narrative that he is an extremist, someone bent on using violent tactics to achieve his goals of equality. Typically compared to the more pacifist ideals of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X was crucified by the American people, hunted by the FBI and vilified by the media. Even in today's understanding of the civil rights movement, his radical approaches are simplified and he is often seen as a foil to Dr. King's heroism.
Malcolm X's life, albeit cut short, was so much more complex than is often depicted. He was a multi-faceted man with ideals that grew as he did and a steadfast moral compass. Below are 150 of Malcolm X's most inspiring quotes specifically chosen to help tell the story of his life, his accomplishments and the deeply profound legacy he left behind.
Related: Black History Month Through the Years: Every Black History Month Theme Since 1928
Malcolm X Quotes
“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.”
“My alma mater was books, a good library… I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”
“Any time you beg another man to set you free, you will never be free. Freedom is something that you have to do for yourselves.”
“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.”
“Without education, you’re not going anywhere in this world.”
“It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That’s the only thing that can save this country.”
“Right now, in every big city ghetto, tens of thousands of yesterday's and today's school dropouts are keeping body and soul together by some form of hustling in the same way I did.”
“All of us—who might have probed space, or cured cancer, or built industries—were, instead, black victims of the white man’s American social system.”
“When ghetto living seems normal, you have no shame, no privacy.”
"I think that an objective reader may see how in the society to which I was exposed as a black youth here in America, for me to wind up in a prison was really just about inevitable. It happens to so many thousands of black youth.”
“When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won’t do to get it, or what he doesn’t believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn’t believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire . . . or preserve his freedom.
“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.”
“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”
“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 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.
“It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come. ”
"[...]After becoming a Muslim in prison, I read almost everything I could put my hands on in the prison library. I began to think back on everything I had read and especially with the histories, I realized that nearly all of them read by the general public have been made into white histories. I found out that the history-whitening process either had left out great things that black men had done, or some of the great black men had gotten whitened.”
“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.”
“The hardest test I ever faced in my life was praying.”
“We’re not Americans, we’re Africans who happen to be in America. We were kidnapped and brought here against our will from Africa. We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock – that rock landed on us.”
“By making our people in the Western Hemisphere hate Africa, we ended up hating ourselves. We hated our African characteristics. We hated our African identity. We hated our African features. So much so that you would find those of us in the West who would hate the shape of our nose. We would hate the shape of our lips. We would hate the color of our skin and the texture of our hair. This was a reaction, but we didn’t realize that it was a reaction.”
“I was going through the hardest thing, also the greatest thing, for any human being to do; to accept that which is already within you, and around you.”
"[...] 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.”
"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."
“Yes, I’m an extremist. The black race… is in extremely bad condition. You show me a black man who isn’t an extremist and I’ll show you one who needs psychiatric attention!”
“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.”
“People involved in a revolution don’t become part of the system; they destroy the system… The Negro revolution is no revolution because it condemns the system and then asks the system it has condemned to accept them…”
“Power never takes a back step – only in the face of more power. ”
“We black men have a hard enough time in our own struggle for justice, and already have enough enemies as it is, to make the drastic mistake of attacking each other and adding more weight to an already unbearable load.”
“Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it’s against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it’s against the oppressor. You don’t need anything else.”
“A new world order is in the making, and it is up to us to prepare ourselves that we may take our rightful place in it.”
“Speaking like this doesn’t mean that we’re anti-white, but it does mean we’re anti-exploitation, we’re anti-degradation, we’re anti-oppression.”
"Early in life I learned that if you want something, you better make some noise."
“If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.”
"A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."
“In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.”
“I don't advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I'll step on his...”
“A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.”
“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.”
“If you turn the other cheek, you can be enslaved for 1,000 years.”
"Black people are fed up with the dillydallying, pussyfooting, compromising approach that we’ve been using toward getting our freedom. We want freedom now, but we’re not going to get it saying "We Shall Overcome". We’ve got to fight until we overcome."
“The greatest miracle Christianity has achieved in America is that the black man in white Christian hands has not grown violent. It is a miracle that 22 million black people have not risen up against their oppressors – in which they would have been justified by all moral criteria, and even by the democratic tradition! It is a miracle that a nation of black people has so fervently continued to believe in a turn-the-other-cheek and heaven-for-you-after-you-die philosophy!"
“I want Dr. King to know that I didn’t come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King.”
“Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”
“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”
“It takes heart to be a guerrilla warrior because you’re on your own. In conventional warfare you have tanks and a whole lot of other people with you to back you up—planes over your head and all that kind of stuff. But a guerrilla is on his own. All you have is a rifle, some sneakers and a bowl of rice, and that’s all you need — and a lot of heart.”
"If you have no critics, you'll likely have no success."
“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 believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won’t let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.”
“The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery. The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slave master was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today and refuse it. I never acknowledge it whatsoever.”
“You can't have capitalism without racism.”
“I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream--I see an American nightmare.”
“If you have a dog, I must have a dog. If you have a rifle, I must have a rifle. If you have a club, I must have a club. This is equality.”
“We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.”
“Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.”
“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?”
“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
“I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he’s wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.”
“To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace.”
“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.”
“A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can't play the part of a wise man.”
“I believe that there will 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...”
"We declare our right on this earth to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary."
“Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.”
“The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you'll get action.”
“You can’t hate the roots of the tree without ending up hating the tree. You can’t hate your origin without ending up hating yourself. You can’t hate the land, your motherland, the place that you come from, and we can’t hate Africa without ending up hating ourselves."
“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.”
“In the past, the greatest weapon the white man has had has been his ability to divide and conquer. If I take my hand and slap you, you don’t even feel it. It might sting you because these digits are separated. But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together.”
“My black brothers and sisters – of all religious beliefs, or of no religious beliefs – we all have in common the greatest binding tie we could have. We are all black people!”
“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.”
“In the hectic pace of the world today, there is no time for meditation, or for deep thought. A prisoner has time that he can put to good use. I’d put prison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. If he’s motivated, in prison he can change his life.”
“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 every one of our people in this country, it doesn't exist for me.”
“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 hard for anyone intelligent to be nonviolent.”
“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”
“In any organization, someone must be the boss. If it’s even just one person, you’ve got to be the boss of yourself.”
“And just because you have colleges and universities doesn't mean you have education.”
“I imagine that one of the biggest troubles with colleges is there are too many distractions, too much panty-raiding, fraternities, and boola-boola and all of that.”
“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.”
“I want to take Negroes out of the ghetto and put them in good neighborhoods in good houses.”
“When we see that our problem is so complicated and so all-encompassing in its intent and content, then we realize that it is no longer a Negro problem, confined only to the American Negro; that it is no longer an American problem, confined only to America, but it is a problem for humanity.”
“You can’t legislate good will – that comes through education.”
“I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda… 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.”
“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.”
“Read absolutely everything you get your hands on because you'll never know where you'll get an idea from...”
“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.”
If it doesn't take senators and congressmen and presidential proclamations to give freedom to the white man, it is not necessary for legislation or proclamation or Supreme Court decisions to give freedom to the Black man. You let that white man know, if this is a country of freedom, let it be a country of freedom; and if it's not a country of freedom, change it.
“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!"
"As long as you’re fighting on the level of civil rights, you’re under Uncle Sam’s jurisdiction. You’re going to his court expecting him to correct the problem. He created the problem. He’s the criminal. You don’t take your case to the criminal; you take your criminal to court."
“The Negro revolution is controlled by foxy white liberals, by the Government itself. But the Black Revolution is controlled only by God.”
"It’ll be the ballot or it’ll be the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death. And if you’re not ready to pay that price don’t use the word freedom in your vocabulary."
“I'm a man who believes that I died 20 years ago. And I live like a man who is dead already. I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.”
“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”
“Don't be bitter. Remember Lot's wife when they kill me, and they surely will. You have to use all of your energy to do what it is you have to do. [To his wife Betty Shabazz]”
“If you are in a country that is progressive, the woman is progressive. If you're in a country that reflects the consciousness toward the importance of education, it's because the woman is aware of the importance of education. But in every backward country, you'll find the women are backward, and in every country where education is not stressed, it's because the women don't have education.”
“Even Samson, the world's strongest man, was destroyed by the woman who slept in his arms. she was the one whose words hurt him.”
"They cripple the bird's wing, and then condemn it for not flying as fast as they."
“To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude towards Africa becomes more positive, your understanding of and attitude towards yourself will also becomes more positive...”
“Segregation is that which is forced upon an inferior by a superior. Separation is done voluntarily by two equals.”
"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."
"Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression."
"Usually the black racist has been produced by the white racist. In most cases where you see it, it is the reaction to white racism, and if you analyze it closely, it's not really black racism... If we react to white racism with a violent reaction, to me that's not black racism. If you come to put a rope around my neck and I hang you for it, to me that's not racism. Yours is racism, but my reaction has nothing to do with racism..."
“History is a people's memory, and without a memory, a man is demoted to the lower animals.”
“Brothers and sisters, I am here to tell you that I charge the white man. I charge the white man with being the greatest murderer on earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest kidnapper on earth. There is no place in this world that this man can go and say he created peace and harmony. Everywhere he's gone, he's created havoc. Everywhere he's gone, he's created destruction."
“A man curses because he doesn't have the words to say what's on his mind.”
“How is it possible to write one's autobiography in a world so fast-changing as this?”
“The world since Adam has been white—and corrupt. The world of tomorrow will be black—and righteous. In the white world there has been nothing but slavery, suffering, death and colonialism. In the black world of tomorrow, there will be true freedom, justice and equality for all. And that day is coming—sooner than you think.”
“You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I'm not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man.”
“Time is more important to me then distance”
“No man has believed perfectly until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.”
“American society makes it next to impossible for humans to meet in America and not be conscious of their color differences. And we both agreed that if racism could be removed, America could offer a society where rich and poor could truly live like human beings....The white man is not inherently evil, but America's racist society influences him to act evilly. The society has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings.”
“Tell him that he and all of the other moderate Negroes who are getting somewhere need to always remember that it was us extremists who made it possible.”
If they don't want you and me to use clubs, take the clubs away from the racists. If they don't want you and me to get violent, then stop the racists from being violent. Don't teach us non-violence!!!”
“Why, when all of my ancestors are snake-bitten, and I’m snake-bitten, and I warn my children to avoid snakes, what does that snake sound like accusing me of hate-teaching?”
“All of us - who might have probed space, or cured cancer, or built industries - were, instead, black victims of the white man's American social system.”
“...the truth can be quickly received, or received at all, only by the sinner who knows and admits that he is guilty of having sinned much. Stated another way: only guilt admitted accepts truth.”
“It's like the Negro in America seeing the white man win all the time. He's a professional gambler; he has all the cards and the odds stacked on his side, and he has always dealt to our people from the bottom of the deck.”
“Do Your Best Work”
“No one will know who we are... until we now who we are! We will be able to go anywhere until we know where we are!”
“In the United States, it is our weakness to confuse the numerical strength of an organization and the publicity attached to leaders with the germinating forces that sow the seeds of social upheaval in our community.”
“It is the process of mis-education that inhibits the full potential of a nation.”
“Let’s just face truth. Facts! Whether or not the white man of the world is able to face truth, and facts, about the true reasons for his troubles—that’s what essentially will determine whether or not he will now survive.”
“If you are born in America with a black skin, you're in prison”
“Yes, I have cherished my “demagogue” role. I know that societies often have killed the people who have helped to change those societies. And if I can die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America—then, all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.”
“And concerning anything in this society involved in helping Negroes, the federal government shows an inability to function. But it can function in South Vietnam, in the Congo, in Berlin, and in other places where it has no business. But it can't function in Mississippi.”
"Armed with the knowledge of our past, we can with confidence charter a course for our future. Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle. We must take hold of it and forge the future with the past."
“If something is yours by right, then fight for it or shut up.”
“[S]ociety has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings.”
Either you are a citizen or you are not a citizen at all. If you are a citizen, you are free; if you're not a citizen you are a slave.”
“Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern, you change your — your attitude. Once you change your attitude, it changes your behavior pattern and then you go on into some action. As long as you gotta sit-down philosophy, you’ll have a sit-down thought pattern, and as long as you think that old sit-down thought you’ll be in some kind of sit-down action.”
“Change is only a good thing if you change in a good way.”
"In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determine success or failure."
“Despite my firm convictions, I have been always a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.”
“I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color”
“Hatred and anger are powerless when met with kindness.”
"[...] today this country can become involved in a revolution that won’t take bloodshed. All she’s got to do is give the black man in this country everything that’s due him, everything."
“It is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come”
“Truth does not change, only our awareness of it.”
“The thing that you have to understand about those of us in the Black Muslim movement was that all of us believed 100 percent in the divinity of Elijah Muhammad. We believed in him. We actually believed that God, in Detroit by the way, that God had taught him and all of that. I always believed that he believed in himself. And I was shocked when I found out that he himself didn’t believe it.”
“I feel like a man who has been asleep somewhat and under someone else’s control. I feel that what I’m thinking and saying is now for myself. Before it was for and by the guidance of Elijah Muhammad. Now I think with my own mind, sir!”
“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.”
"Dr. King wants the same thing I want. Freedom.”
“I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being--neither white, black, brown, or red; and when you are dealing with humanity as a family there's no question of integration or intermarriage. It's just one human being marrying another human being or one human being living around and with another human being.”
“He said, one time, that no true leader burdened his followers with a greater load than they could carry, and no true leader sets too fast a pace for his follows to keep up.”
“Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.”
“How can anyone be against love?”
"This is to warn you that I am no longer held in check from fighting white supremacists by Elijah Muhammad's separatist Black Muslim movement, and that if your present racist agitation against our people there in Alabama causes physical harm to Reverend King or any other black Americans who are only attempting to enjoy their rights as free human beings, that you and your Ku Klux Klan friends will be met with maximum physical retaliation from those of us who are not handcuffed by the disarming philosophy of nonviolence, and who believe in asserting our right of self-defense — by any means necessary."
“Sometimes, I have a dared dream to myself that one day, history may even say that my voice--which disturbed the white man's smugness, and his arrogance, and his complacency--that my voice helped to save America from a grave, possibly even a fatal catastrophe.”
One day, may we all meet together in the light of understanding."
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