Malcolm X Quotes

When someone sticks a knife six inches into your back, and then pulls it out two inches and claims he's doing you a favor, don't believe him.

Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth.

Yes, I'm an extremist. The Black race here in North America is in extremely bad condition. You show me a Black man who isn't an extremist and I'll show you one who needs psychiatric attention.

I don't advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I'll step on his.

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's already yours?

History is a people's memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals.

You spend so much time barking up the civil-rights tree, you don't even know there's a human-rights tree on the same floor.

I don't care how nice one is to you, the thing you must always remember is that almost never does he really see you as he sees himself, as he sees his own kind.

We were truly all the same (brothers) - because their belief in one God had removed the white from their minds, the white from their behavior, and the white from their attitude.

You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.

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.

Forget the methods or the differences in methods. As long as we agree that the thing that the Afro-American wants and needs is recognition and respect as a human being.

I was an atheist, I was open-minded, and I began to read in that direction, in the direction of Islam, and everything that I read about it appealed to me.

Western interests: imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, racism, and other negative -isms.

I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.

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 the next time.

Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power.

One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself.

Education is our passport to the future.

And just because you have colleges and universities doesn't mean you have education.

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

You can't hate your origin and not end up hating yourself. You can't hate Africa and not hate yourself.

To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude toward Afrika become positive, you'll find that your understanding of and your attitude toward yourself will also become positive.

If the Emancipation Proclamation was authentic, you wouldn't have a race problem.

My father didn't know his real name. My father got his name from his grandfather and he got his name from his grandfather and he got it from the slave master.

The only possible way out for the white man is to give us Negroes some land of our own; let us get out, get away from his wicked reign and go for ourselves.

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

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.

Either you are a citizen or you are not a citizen at all. If you are citizen, you are free; if youre not a citizen you are a slave.

The black nation of Egypt is the only country that has a science named after its culture: Egyptology

A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire, or preserve his freedom.

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.

I believe in Islam. I am a Muslim and there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim, nothing wrong with the religion of Islam. It just teaches us to believe in Allah as the God.

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

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.

To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace

Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.

What is a Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise.

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.

To me, political action involves making the politician who represents us know that he either produces or he is out, and he's out one way or another.

All over this world people are standing up for freedom.

It’ll be the ballot or it’ll be the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death. And if you’re not ready to pay that price don’t use the word freedom in your vocabulary.

The junkie can never start to cure himself until he recognizes his true condition.

Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle.

On the Iberian Peninsula in the Spanish-Portuguese area, southern France that high state of a culture existed there because of Africans known as Moors had come there and brought it there.

Like Samson, I am ready to pull down the white man's temple, knowing full well that I will be destroyed by the falling rubble.

Never allow your enemies to educate your children.

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.

The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.

The whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and universities, will see the handwriting on the wall and many of them will turn to the spiritual path of truth.