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

“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 its because the women don't have education.”

“Our people have made the mistake of confusing the methods with the objectives. As long as we agree on objectives, we should never fall out with each other just because we believe in different methods, or tactics, or strategy. We have to keep in mind at all times that we are not fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as free humans in this society.”

“If all the white people who claim they don't hate us would ever get together and do something to the whites who claim they hate us, we'd see some action. Talk is cheap, if white people didn't want to have a South African situation ... there'd be none. If white people in America didn't want segregation, there'd be none ... it is the man who allows him to lynch who is never seen.”

“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.”

“What does 'economic justice' mean, except that you want something that someone else produced, without having to produce anything yourself in return?”

“What the two hands of the labourer can achieve, the capitalist will never get with all his gold and silver.”

“Under ideal conditions, the barrister and the bhangi (sweeper) should both get the same payment.”

“In USA, a black man only have like five years we can exhibit maximum strength, and that's right now while you a teenager, while you still strong, while you still wanna lift weights, while you still wanna shoot back. 'Cause once you turn 30, it's like they take the heart and soul out of a man, out of a black man, in this country. And you don't wanna fight no more.”

“If you're a black man, they really call you out and have you deal with them.”

“The Government is responsible for what is happening to black people in America.”

“. . . nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it; he died As one that had been studied in his death To throw away the dearest thing he owed, As 'twere a careless trifle.”

“Let none presume To wear an undeserved dignity.”

“Base is the slave that pays.”

“To begin with, our knowledge grows in spots. The spots may be large or small, but the knowledge ever grows all over... What you first gain from them is probably a small amount of new information, a few new definitions, or distinctions, or points of view. But while these special ideas are being added, the rest of your knowledge stands still, and only gradually will you 'line up' your previous opinions with the novelties I am trying to instil, and modify to some slight degree their mass.”

“How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

“Does housekeeping interest you at all? I think it really ought to be just as good as writing and I never see where the separation between the too comes in. At least if you must put books on one side and life on the other, each is a poor and bloodless thing; but my theory is that they mix indistinguishable.”

“And makes me poor indeed.”

“Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor”

“Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail, And say there is no sin but to be rich; And being rich, my virtue then shall be To say there is no vice but beggary”

“My business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.”

“I covet truth; beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; I leave it behind with the games of youth.”

“Money often costs too much.”

“It now appears that the negro race is, more than any other, susceptible of rapid civilization. The emancipation is observed, in the islands, to have wrought for the negro a benefit as sudden as when a thermometer is brought out of the shade into the sun. It has given him eyes and ears.”

“The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded.”

“Black men built the railroads, not blue eyes.”