“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.”

“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it’s for or against.”

“It takes heart to be a guerrilla warrior because you’re on your own. In conventional warfare you have tanks and a whole lot of other people with you to back you up—planes over your head and all that kind of stuff. But a guerrilla is on his own. All you have is a rifle, some sneakers and a bowl of rice, and that’s all you need — and a lot of heart.”

“There is nothing in our book, the Koran, 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 puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That’s a good religion.”

“When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won’t do to get it, or what he doesn’t believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn’t believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire or preserve his freedom.”

“They put your mind right in a bag, and take it wherever they want.”

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

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

“The real names of our people were destroyed during slavery. The last name of my forefathers was taken from them when they were brought to America and made slaves, and then the name of the slave master was given, which we refuse, we reject that name today and refuse it. I never acknowledge it whatsoever.”

“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.”

“One day, may we all meet together in the light of understanding.”

“We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.”

“I don’t see an American Dream, I see an American Nightmare.”

“I’m the man you think you are. If you want to know what I’ll do, figure out what you’ll do. I’ll do the same thing–only more of it.”

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

“Without education, you’re not going anywhere in this world.”

“The day that the black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes that he’s within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don’t think he’ll be by himself.”

“Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they’ve always made me glad.”

“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.”

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

“When ghetto living seems normal, you have no shame, no privacy.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I feel like a man who has been asleep somewhat and under someone else’s control. I feel that what I’m thinking and saying is now for myself. Before it was for and by the guidance of Elijah Muhammad. Now I think with my own mind, sir!”

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

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

“I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he’s wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.”

“You can’t hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can’t hate Africa and not hate yourself.”

“My black brothers and sisters – of all religious beliefs, or of no religious beliefs – we all have in common the greatest binding tie we could have. We are all black people!”

“Segregation is that which is forced upon an inferior by a superior. Separation is done voluntarily by two equals.”

“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.”

“I just don’t believe that when people are being unjustly oppressed that they should let someone else set rules for them by which they can come out from under that oppression.”

“It’s hard for anyone intelligent to be nonviolent.”

“In the past, the greatest weapon the white man has had has been his ability to divide and conquer. If I take my hand and slap you, you don’t even feel it. 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.”

“When we see that our problem is so complicated and so all-encompassing in its intent and content, then we realize that it is no longer a Negro problem, confined only to the American Negro; that it is no longer an American problem, confined only to America, but it is a problem for humanity.”

“Change is only a good thing if you change in a good way.”

“I want to take Negroes out of the ghetto and put them in good neighborhoods in good houses.”

“If you turn the other cheek, you can be enslaved for 1,000 years.”

“Good education, housing and jobs are imperatives for the Negroes, and I shall support them in their fight to win these objectives, but I shall tell the Negroes that while these are necessary, they cannot solve the main Negro problem.”

“You can’t legislate good will – that comes through education.”

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

“America is the first country that can actually have a bloodless revolution.”

“Do you know what integration really means? It means intermarriage. That’s the real point behind it. You can’t have it without intermarriage. And that would result in disintegration of both races.”

“Integration will not bring a man back from the grave.”