Malcolm X was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a popular figure during the civil rights movement. He is best known for his controversial advocacy for the rights of blacks; some consider him a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans, while others accused him of preaching racism and violence.

He advocated for black supremacy, the separation of black and white Americans, and rejected the notion of the civil rights movement for its emphasis on racial integration. Malcolm X was posthumously honored with Malcolm X Day, where he is commemorated in various cities and countries worldwide. Hundreds of streets and schools in the U.S. have been renamed in his honor.

“A man curses because he doesn’t have the words to say what’s on his mind.” – Malcolm X
“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” – 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
“America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem.” – 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
“American society makes it next to impossible for humans to meet in America and not be conscious of their color differences.” – 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
“Anyone who has studied the genetic phase of biology knows that white is considered recessive and black is considered dominant.” – 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
“As long as you are convinced you have never done anything, you can never do anything.” – 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
“Children have a lesson adults should learn-to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again.” – 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
“Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it.” – 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.” – 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
“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X
“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.” – 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
“History is a people’s memory, and without a memory, a man is demoted to the lower animals.” – 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
“How is it possible to write one’s autobiography in a world so fast-changing as this?” – Malcolm X
“I actually believed that after living as fully as humanly possible, one should then die violently. I expected then as I still expect today.” – 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
“I am and always will be a Muslim. My religion is Islam.” – Malcolm X
“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.’” – Malcolm X
“I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.” – Malcolm X
“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.” – 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.” – 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.” – Malcolm X
“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
“I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation.” – Malcolm X
“I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don’t think it will be based on the color of the skin.” – Malcolm X
“I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
“I came here to tell the truth-and if the truth condemns America, then she stands condemned!” – Malcolm X
“I don’t advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I’ll step on his.” – Malcolm X
“I don’t even call it violence when it’s in self defense; I call it intelligence.” – Malcolm X
“I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.” – Malcolm X
“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.” – 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
“I saw all races, all colors, blue eyed blondes 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
“I say, sir, that you can never make an intelligent judgment without evidence.” – 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
“I think I deliberately invited death in many, sometimes insane, ways.” – Malcolm X
“I was going through the hardest thing, also the greatest thing, for any human being to do-to accept that which is already within you, and around you.” – Malcolm X
“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.” – 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
“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
“If someone puts their hands on you, make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.” – Malcolm X
“If you are born in America with a black skin, you’re in prison.” – Malcolm X
“If you are in a country that is progressive, the woman is progressive. If you’re in a country that reflects the consciousness toward the importance of education, it’s because the woman is aware of the importance of education. But in every backward country, you’ll find the women are backward. And in every country where education is not stressed, it’s because the women don’t have education.” – Malcolm X
“If you dont stand for something, you fall for everything.” – Malcolm X
“If you have no critics, you’ll likely have no success.” – 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
“If you’re not ready to die for it, take the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.” – Malcolm X
“Ignorance of each other is what has made unity impossible in the past.” – 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
“In our mutual sincerity, we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America’s very soul.” – Malcolm X
“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!” – Malcolm X
“It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.” – Malcolm X
“It is the process of miseducation that inhibits the full potential of a nation.” – Malcolm X
“It seems that some women love to be exploited. When they are not exploited, they exploit the man.” – Malcolm X
“Just because you have colleges and universities doesn’t mean you have education.” – Malcolm X
“Later on in life, if I were continuously losing in any gambling situation, I would watch very closely.” – Malcolm X
“Mankind’s history has proved, from one era to another, that the true criterion of leadership is spiritual.” – Malcolm X
“Men are attracted by spirit. By power, men are forced. Love is engendered by spirit. By power, anxieties are created.” – Malcolm X
“Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.” – Malcolm X
“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.” – 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
“My family was so poor we were close to eating the holes inside of doughnuts.” – Malcolm X
“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
“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.” – Malcolm X
“Once we have more knowledge about each other, we will stop condemning each other and a united front will be brought about.” – Malcolm X
“One day, may we all meet together in the light of understanding.” – Malcolm X
“One of the main things that I read about it that appealed to me was in Islam, a man is honored as a human being and not measured by the color of his skin.” – Malcolm X
“Only, the mistakes were mine.” – Malcolm X
“People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.” – Malcolm X
“Power, in defense of freedom, is greater than power on behalf of tyranny and oppression.” – Malcolm X
“Read absolutely everything you get your hands on because you’ll never know where you’ll get an idea from.” – Malcolm X
“Since I learned the truth in Mecca, my dearest friends have come to include all kinds-some Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, agnostics, and even atheists! I have friends who are called capitalists, socialists, and communists! Some of my friends are moderates, conservatives, extremists-some are even Uncle Toms! My friends today are black, brown, red, yellow, and white!” – 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
“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.” – Malcolm X
“Society has produced and nourished a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings.” – Malcolm X
“Sometimes, you have to pick the gun up to put the gun down.” – Malcolm X
“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” – Malcolm X
“The Black man in the Western Hemisphere-North America, Central America, South America, and in the Caribbean-is the best example of how one can be made-skillfully-to hate himself that you can find anywhere on this earth.” – Malcolm X
“The Democrats who are conservative, vote with the Republicans who are conservative.” – Malcolm X
“The Democrats who are liberal, vote with the Republicans that are liberal.” – Malcolm X
“The greatest miracle Christianity has achieved in America is that the black man in white Christian hands has not grown violent.” – Malcolm X
“The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you’ll get action.” – Malcolm X
“The hardest test I ever faced in my life was praying.” – 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
“The only people living in the past who think in terms of ‘I’m a Democrat or Republican,’ is the American Negro.” – Malcolm X
“The only way that our problem will be solved is when the black man wakes up, cleans himself up, stands on his own feet, and stops begging the white man, and takes immediate steps to do for ourselves the things that we have been waiting on the white man to do for us.” – 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 religion of Islam actually restores one’s human feelings, human rights, human incentives, human talent.” – Malcolm X
“The truth can be quickly received, or received at all, only by the sinner who knows and admits that he is guilty of having sinned much. Stated another way, only guilt admitted accepts truth.” – Malcolm X
“The white liberal aren’t white people who are for independence, who are moral and ethical in their thinking. They are just a faction of white people that are jockeying for power.” – Malcolm X
“The white liberal is the worst enemy to America, and the worst enemy to the black man.” – Malcolm X
“The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the smiling fox. One is the wolf, the other is a fox. No matter what, they’ll both eat you.” – Malcolm X
“The white man is not inherently evil, but America’s racist society influences him to act evilly.” – Malcolm X
“The worst enemy that the Negro has is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have.” – Malcolm X
“The young people are the ones who most quickly identify with the struggle and the necessity to eliminate the evil conditions that exist.” – Malcolm X
“There is nothing 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
“These Negros aren’t asking for no nation. They wanna crawl back on the plantation.” – Malcolm X
“They cripple the bird’s wing, and then condemn it for not flying as fast as they.” – 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.” – Malcolm X
“This religion recognizes all men as brothers. It accepts all human beings as equals before God, and as equal members in the human family of mankind.” – Malcolm X
“This was my first lesson about gambling-if you see somebody winning all the time, he isn’t gambling, he’s cheating.” – Malcolm X
“Thoughtful white people know they are inferior to black people.” – Malcolm X
“Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white, but the white attitude had been removed from their minds by the religion of Islam.” – Malcolm X
“Time is more important to me than distance.” – 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.” – Malcolm X
“To have once been a criminal is no disgrace-to remain a criminal is the disgrace.” – 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
“To tell a woman not to talk too much was like telling Jesse James not to carry a gun, or a hen not to cackle.” – Malcolm X
“To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude towards Africa becomes more positive, your understanding of and attitude towards yourself will also become more positive.” – 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
“Truth does not change, only our awareness of it.” – Malcolm X
“Truth is on the side of the oppressed.” – 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
“We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.” – 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
“We didn’t land on Plymouth rock, Plymouth rock landed on us” – Malcolm X.
“We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.” – Malcolm X
“Western interests-imperialism, colonialism, exploitation, racism, and other negative ‘-isms.’” – 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.” – Malcolm X
“White people are divided into two groups-liberals and conservatives.” – Malcolm X
“Who taught you to hate yourself?” – Malcolm X
“You are either free or not free.” – Malcolm X
“You can cuss out colonialism, imperialism, and all other kinds of ‘ism,’ but it’s hard for you to cuss that dollarism. When they drop those dollars on you, your soul goes.” – Malcolm X
“You can’t hate the land, your motherland, the place that you come from, and we can’t hate Africa, without ending up hating ourselves.” – Malcolm X
“You can’t hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.” – Malcolm X
“You can’t hate your origin without ending up hating yourself.” – Malcolm X
“You can’t have capitalism without racism.” – Malcolm X
“You cannot separate peace and freedom, because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” – 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
“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
“You show me a capitalist, and I’ll show you a bloodsucker.” – 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

Tags: Quotes