Malcolm X > Quotes

“If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.”
― 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, By Any Means Necessary

“My alma mater was books, a good library.... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”
― Malcolm X

“If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.”
― Malcolm X

“People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography Of Malcolm X

“Sometimes you have to pick the Gun up to put the Gun down”
― Malcolm X

“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”
― Malcolm X

“Truth is on the side of the oppressed.”
― Malcolm X

“If you have no critics you'll likely have no success. ”
― Malcolm X

“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography Of 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 show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker”
― Malcolm X

“We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.”
― Malcolm X

“We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.”
― Malcolm X

“If you're not ready to die for it, take the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“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?”
― Malcolm X

“A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can't play the part of a wise man.”
― Malcolm X

“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X

“To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”
― Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X

“I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream--I see an American nightmare.”
― Malcolm X

“And because I had been a hustler, I knew better than all whites knew, and better than nearly all of the black 'leaders' knew, that actually the most dangerous black man in America was the ghetto hustler. Why do I say this? The hustler, out there in the ghetto jungles, has less respect for the white power structure than any other Negro in North America. The ghetto hustler is internally restrained by nothing. He has no religion, no concept of morality, no civic responsibility, no fear--nothing. To survive, he is out there constantly preying upon others, probing for any human weakness like a ferret. The ghetto hustler is forever frustrated, restless, and anxious for some 'action'. Whatever he undertakes, he commits himself to it fully, absolutely. What makes the ghetto hustler yet more dangerous is his 'glamour' image to the school-dropout youth in the ghetto.These ghetto teen-agers see the hell caught by their parents struggling to get somewhere, or see that they have given up struggling in the prejudiced, intolerant white man’s world. The ghetto teen-agers make up their own minds they would rather be like the hustlers whom they see dressed ‘sharp’ and flashing money and displaying no respect for anybody or anything. So the ghetto youth become attracted to the hustler worlds of dope, thievery, prostitution, and general crime and immorality.”
― Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X

“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”
― Malcolm X

“You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.”
― Malcolm X

“As long as you are convinced you have never done anything, you can never do anything.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography Of Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X

“لقد غيرت القراءة مجرى حياتي تغييراً جذرياً ولم أكن أهدف من ورائها الى كسب أية شهادات لتحسين مركزي وانما كنت اريد ان احيا فكريا.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
― Malcolm X, Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“Don't condemn if you see a person has a dirty glass of water, just show them the clean glass of water that you have. When they inspect it, you won't have to say that yours is better."
-said by Elijah Muhammad to Malcolm X”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography Of Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements

“By any means necessary.”
― Malcolm X

“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.”
― Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X

“It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come. ”
― Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X

“I saw all races, all colors, blue eyed blonds to black skinned Africans in true brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshiping as one! No segregationists, no liberals; they would not have known how to interpret the meaning of those words”
― Malcolm X, Autobiography of Malcolm X