Malcolm X Quotes - Famous Quotes by Malcolm X
Born: 1925-05-19
Died: 1965-02-21
Malcolm X Biography
Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.
- Malcolm X
***
History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals.
- Malcolm X
More quotations on: [ History ] ***
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.
- Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X
***
My thinking had been opened up wide in Mecca. I wrote long letters to my friends, in which I tried to convey to them my new insights into the American black man’s struggle and his problems as well as the depths of my search for truth and justice. “I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda,” I had written to these friends. “I am for truth, no matter who tells it. I am for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I am a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” The American white man’s press called me the angriest Negro in America. I wouldn’t deny that charge; I spoke exactly as I felt. I believe in anger. I believe it is a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself. I am for violence if non-violence means that we continue postponing or even delaying a solution to the American black man’s problem. White man hates to hear anybody, especially a black man, talk about the crime that the white man perpetrated on the black man. But let me remind you that when the white man came into this country, he certainly wasn’t demonstrating non-violence.
- malcolm X, Autobiography of malcolm x
***
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.
- Malcolm X
***
Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of our racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.
- John Kennedy, Autobiography of malcolm x
***
Power in defense of freedom is greater than power on behalf of tyranny and oppression.
- Malcolm X
***
Power never takes a back step - only in the face of more power.
- Malcolm X
***
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.
- Malcolm X
***
The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.
- Malcolm X
***
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.
- 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.
- Malcolm X
***
You can always chase a dream but it will not count if you never catch it.
- Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X chap 4
***
You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
- Malcolm X
***
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.
- Malcolm X
***
|
|
