Malcolm X Quotes

I did a lot of things as a Muslim that I am sorry for now.

There is nothing in our book, the Koran, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent.

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.

My sincerity is my credentials.

I think that the negro should reserve the right to execute.

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.

By explaining the difference between segregation and separation. Segregation is that which is forced upon an inferior by a superior. Separation is done voluntarily by two equals. If I have children and they live in my house, I care for them, they're dependent upon me. And their dependence upon me puts me in a position to regulate their lives, control their lives, tell them where to go, where they can't go. That's a form of segregation.

Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly.

I believe that it would be almost impossible to find anywhere in America a black man who has lived further down in the mud of human society than I have; or a black man who has been any more ignorant than I have; or a black man who has suffered more anguish during his life than I have. But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.

I am a Muslim and . . . my religion makes me be against all forms of racism. It keeps me from judging any man by the color of his skin. It teaches me to judge him by his deeds .

The common enemy is the white man.

The price of freedom is death.

After you get your freedom, your enemy will respect you.

I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do.

Even as a Muslim minister in the Muslim movement, I have always said that I would work with any organization.

They tell us we are all citizens, that we were born in this country. Well, a cat can have kittens in the oven, but that doesn't make them biscuits!

When you are equal with another person, the problem of integration doesn't even arise.

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.

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

Without education, you are not going anywhere in this world.

No one should advocate any peaceful suffering to black people, unless the black - white man is going to practice the same kind of peaceful suffering.

We have to keep in mind at all times that we are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as free humans in this society.

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

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.

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

Daring to reach, to climb, to crawl, to scratch, to get back up when you've been knocked down, to push forward - ever forward - to forgive. It means sacrificing everything if necessary, to carve out a place for your own existence. It means living.

Each of us should make the most of our lives. We should give life our best-let us use our lives more wisely to chase our dreams, find our true purpose, and be as happy and successful as possible.

Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people.

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.

The problem facing our people here in America is bigger than all other personal or organizational differences. Therefore, as leaders, we must stop worrying about the threat that we seem to think we pose to each other's personal prestige, and concentrate our united efforts toward solving the unending hurt that is being done daily to our people here in America.

Do something for yourself, and then you will be recognized by the entire world as a man who has done for himself what others have done for themselves.

Much of what I say might sound bitter, but it's the truth. Much of what I say might sound like it's stirring up trouble, but it's the truth. Much of what I say might sound like its hate, but it's the truth

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.

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.

That's not a chip on my shoulder, that's your foot on my neck.

I don't favor violence. If we could bring about recognition and respect of our people by peaceful means, well and good. Everybody would like to reach his objectives peacefully. But I'm also a realist. The only people in this country who are asked to be nonviolent are black people.

You can always chase a dream but it will not count if you never catch it.

You and I have never seen democracy; all we've seen is hypocrisy.

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

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 Africa wasn't beautiful the white man wouldn't want it.

It's liberty or it's death. It's freedom for everybody or freedom for nobody.

Reverend Galamison is fighting a hard battle against great opposition, and I admire a man who fights a hard battle against great opposition.

I'm for truth, no matter who tells it.

In this country, these Negro leaders have Negroes sittin' - sitting down, thinking that that - there's dignity towards sitting in.

I live like a man who's dead already! I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything

What you and I need to do is learn to forget our differences. When we come together, we don't come together as Baptists or Methodists. You don't catch hell 'cause you're a Baptist, and you don't catch hell 'cause you're a Methodist... You don't catch hell because you're a Democrat or a Republican. You don't catch hell because you're a Mason or an Elk. And you sure don't catch hell 'cause you're an American; 'cause if you was an American, you wouldn't catch no hell. You catch hell 'cause you're a Black man. You catch hell, all of us catch hell, for the same reason.

One of the main things that I read about it that appealed to me was in Islam a man is honored as a human being and not measured by the color of his skin.

Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality.

If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.

Some things are better done than said.

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.

In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.

Only the mistakes were mine.

I think as an intelligent person you would agree that when you are teaching among oppressed people that they should be relieved of their oppression not 100 or 10 years from now, but right now, you're going to find your talk is going to fall upon sympathetic ears.

You're living at a time of extremism, a time of revolutionA time where there's got to be a change. People in power have misused itAnd now there has to be a change and a better world has to be builtAnd the only way is going to be built is with extreme methodsAnd I for one will join with anyone, don't care what color you areAs long as you want change this miserable condition that exists on this earth

The greatest weapon the colonial powers have used in the past against our people has always been his ability to divide and conquer. If I take my hand and slap you, 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.

Once the white man let the Negro get an education, the Negro began to want what the white man has. But he let Negroes get an education and now they are demanding integration; they want to have exactly what he has. And the white man is not going to give it to them!

I believe in the brotherhood of all men, but I don't believe in wasting brotherhood on anyone who doesn't want to practice it with me. Brotherhood is a two-way street.