I’m a man who believes that I died 20 years ago. And I live like a man who is dead already. I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.

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.

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.

You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker

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.

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

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...

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...

You can’t have capitalism without racism.

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.

Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, fromBirth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an...

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

When the meat platter was passed to me, I didn’t even know what the meat was; usually, you couldn’t tell, anyway-but it was suddenly as though _don’t eat any more pork_ flashed on a screen...

How is it possible to write one’s autobiography in a world so fast-changing as this?

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...

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 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.

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,...

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

He said, one time, that no true leader burdened his followers with a greater load than they could carry, and no true leader sets too fast a pace for his follows to keep up.

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

Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.

To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude towards Afrika becomes more positive, your understanding of and attitude towards yourself will also becomes more positive…

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

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...

People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.

My feeling about in-laws was that they were outlaws.

I don’t know how many marriage breakups are caused by these movie-and television-addicted women expecting some bouquets and kissing and hugging and being swept out like Cinderella for dinner and dancing — then getting mad...

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.

Always, every now and then, I had given her a hard time, just to keep her in line. Every once in a while a woman seems to need, in fact wants this too.

I believe that there will be ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality...

Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.

So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.

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...

Eventually my mother suffered a complete breakdown, and the court orders were finally signed. They took her to the State Mental Hospital at Kalamazoo. My mother remained in the same hospital at Kalamazoo for about...

An English writer telephoned me from London, asking questions. One was, ‘What’s your alma mater?’ I told him, ‘Books.

Even Samson, the world’s strongest man, was destroyed by the woman who slept in his arms. she was the one whose words hurt him.

… the young people are the ones who most quickly identify with the struggle and the necessity to eliminate the evil conditions that exist.

The Algerians were revolutionsists, they wanted land. France offered to let them be integrated into France. They told France, to hell with Fance, they wanted some land, not some France.

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...

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...

To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.

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

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

You are either free or not free

Betty’s a good Muslim woman and wife. I don’t imagine many other women might put up with the way I am. Awakening this brainwashed black man and telling this arrogant, devilish white man the truth...

Truth is on the side of the oppressed.

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

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...

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...