Top Malcom X Quotes

1

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

2

Malcolm X

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

3

“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

4

Malcolm X

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

5

Malcolm X

“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.” ― Malcolm X

6

Malcom X

“Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.” ― Malcom X

7

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

8

Malcom X

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

9

Malcolm X

“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

10

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

11

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

12

Malcom X

“You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker” ― Malcom X

13

Malcolm X

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

14

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

15

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

16

Malcolm X

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

17

Malcolm X

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

18

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, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

19

Malcolm X

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

20

Malcolm X

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

21

Malcolm X

“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.” ― Malcolm X

22

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, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

23

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

24

Malcolm X

“You can’t hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.” ― Malcolm X

25

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

26

Malcolm X

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

27

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

28

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

29

Malcom X

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

30

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, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

31

Malcolm X

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

32

Malcolm X

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

33

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

34

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, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

35

Malcolm X

“And when I speak, I don’t speak as a Democrat. Or a Republican. Nor an American. I speak as a victim of America’s so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy – all we’ve seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism. We see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don’t see any American dream. We’ve experienced only the American nightmare.” ― Malcolm X

36

Malcolm X

“And just because you have colleges and universities doesn’t mean you have education.” ― Malcolm X, Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers’ Power

37

Malcolm X

“Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.” ― Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements

38

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

39

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

40

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

41

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, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements

42

Malcolm X

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

43

Malcolm X

“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.” ― Malcolm X

44

Malcolm X

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

45

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

46

Malcolm X

“There is nothing in our book, the Qur’an, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery.” ― Malcolm X

47

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

48

Malcolm X

“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.” ― Malcolm X

49

Malcolm X

“I Used the Word ‘Negro’ and I was Firmly Corrected” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

50

Malcolm X

“Let’s cool it, brothers.” ― Malcolm X

51

Malcolm X

“You are either free or not free” ― Malcolm X, Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers’ Power

52

Malcolm X

“They know that as long as they keep us undereducated, or with an inferior education, it’s impossible for us to compete with them for job openings. And as long as we can’t compete with them and get a decent job, we’re trapped. We are low-wage earners. We have to live in a run-down neighborhood, which means our children go to inferior schools. They get inferior education. And when they grow up, they fall right into the same cycle again. This is the American way. This is the American democracy that she tries to sell to the whole world as being that which will solve the problems of other people too.” ― Malcolm X, Malcolm X Talks to Young People: Speeches in the United States, Britain, and Africa

53

Malcolm X

“You get your freedom by not being confined. You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you’ll do anything to get your freedom. You’ll get it. It’s the only way you’ll get it…So dont you run around here trying to make friends with somebody who’s depriving you of your rights. They’re not your friends. No, they’re your enemies. Treat them like that and fight them, and you’ll get your freedom. And after you get your freedom, your enemey will respect you. He will respect you. I say that with no hate. I have no hate in me. I don’t have any hate, but I’ve got some sense…I’m not going to let somebody who hates me to tell me to love him. I’m not that way out.” ― Malcolm X, Malcolm X Talks to Young People: Speeches in the United States, Britain, and Africa

54

Malcolm X

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

55

Malcolm X

“It is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come” ― Malcolm X

56

Malcolm X

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

57

Malcolm X

“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! It is a miracle that the American black people have remained a peaceful people, while catching all the centuries of hell that they have caught, here in white man’s heaven! The miracle is that the white man’s puppet Negro ‘leaders’, his preachers and the educated Negroes laden with degrees, and others who have been allowed to wax fat off their black poor brothers, have been able to hold the black masses quiet until now.” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

58

Malcolm X

“I want to say before I go on that I have never previously told anyone my sordid past in detail. I haven’t done it now to sound as though I might be proud of how bad, how evil, I was.

But people are always speculating-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.

Today, when everything that I do has an urgency, I would not spend one hour in the preparation of a book which had the ambition to perhaps titillate some readers. But I am spending many hours
because the full story is the best way that I know to have it seen, and understood, that I had sunk to the very bottom of the American white man’s society when-soon now, in prison-I found Allah and the religion of Islam and it completely transformed my life.” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

59

Malcolm X

“I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare.” ― Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements

60

Malcolm X

“Thoughtful white people know they are inferior to black people. Anyone who has studied the genetic phase of biology knows that white is considered recessive and black is considered dominant. When you want strong coffee, you ask for black coffee. If you want it light, you want it weak, integrated with white milk. Just like these Negroes who weaken themselves and their race by this integrating and intermixing with whites. If you want bread with no nutritional value, you ask for white bread. All the good that was in it has been bleached out of it, and it will constipate you. If you want pure flour, you ask for dark flour, whole-wheat flour. If you want pure sugar, you want dark sugar.” ― Malcolm X

61

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. I” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

62

Malcom X

“My family was so poor we were close to eating the holes inside of doughnuts.” ― Malcom X

63

Malcolm X

“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.” ― Malcolm X

64

Malcolm X

“A man curses because he doesn’t have the words to say what’s on his mind.” ― Malcolm X

65

Malcolm X

“Truth does not change, only our awareness of it.” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

66

Malcolm X

“How is it possible to write one’s autobiography in a world so fast-changing as this?” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

67

Malcolm X

“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.” ― Malcolm X

68

Malcolm X

“I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading 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. I certainly wasn’t seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My home made education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me from London asking questions. One was, “What’s your alma mater?” I told him, “Books.” 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.” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

69

Malcolm X

“All I had done was to improve on their strategy, and it was the beginning of a very important lesson in life – that 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.” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

70

Malcolm X

“I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land–every color, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike–all snored in the same language.” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

71

Malcolm X

“One day, may we all meet together in the light of understanding.” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

72

Malcolm X

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

73

Malcom X

“If you dont stand for something you fall for everything.” ― Malcom X

74

Malcolm X

“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.” ― Malcolm X

75

Malcolm X

“By any means necessary.” ― Malcolm X

76

Malcolm X

“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.” ― Malcolm X

77

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, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

78

Malcolm X

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

79

Malcolm X

“This was my first lesson about gambling: if you see somebody winning all the time, he isn’t gambling, he’s cheating. Later on in life, if I were continuously losing in any gambling situation, I would watch very closely.” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

80

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

81

Malcolm X

“Read absolutely everything you get your hands on because you’ll never know where you’ll get an idea from…” ― Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements

82

Malcolm X

“They cripple the bird’s wing, and then condemn it for not flying as fast as they.” ― Malcolm X

83

Malcolm X

“I learned early that crying out in protest could accomplish things. My older brothers and sister had started to school when, sometimes, they would come in and ask for a buttered biscuit or something and my mother, impatiently, would tell them no. But I would cry out and make a fuss until I got what I wanted. I remember well how my mother asked me why I couldn’t be a nice boy like Wilfred; but I would think to myself that Wilfred, for being so nice and quiet, often stayed hungry. So early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

84

Malcolm X

“When I am dead–I say it that way because from the things I know, I do not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form–I want you to just watch and see if I’m not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with “hate”. He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol, of “hatred”–and that will help him escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect, to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race.” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

85

Malcom X

“You can’t have capitalism without racism.” ― Malcom X

86

Malcolm X

“We all like chicken” ― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

87

Malcom X

“No, I’m not an American. I’m one of 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the … victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver – no, not I! I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare!” ― Malcom X

88

Malcolm X

“I don’t advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I’ll step on his…” ― Malcolm X

89

Malcolm X

“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!

We will completely respect our white co-workers. They will deserve every credit. We will give them every credit. We will meanwhile be working among our own kind, in our own black communities- showing and teaching black men in ways that only other black men can- that the black man has got to help himself. Working separately, the sincere white people and sincere black people actually will be working together.

In our mutual sincerity we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America’s very soul.” ― Malcolm X

90

Malcolm X

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

91

Malcolm X

“Only the mistakes were mine.” ― Malcolm X

92

Malcolm X

“America’s greatest crime against the black man was not slavery or lynching, but that he was taught to wear a mask of self-hate and self-doubt.” ― Malcolm X

93

Malcolm X

“We didn’t land on plymouth rock, Plymouth rock landed on us”.” ― Malcolm X

94

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

95

Malcolm X

“Western interests: imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, racism, and other negative -isms.” ― Malcolm X

96

Malcolm X

“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]” ― Malcolm X

97

Malcolm X

“Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past. Therefore we need enlightenment. We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity. Once we have more knowledge (light) about each other, we will stop condemning each other and a United front will be brought about.” ― Malcolm X

98

Top Malcom X Quotes

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