Before we read the best Malcolm X quotes, Let’s know a bit more about him.
Malcom X was one of the most influential African Americans, He was a human rights activist and a prominent leader representing islam.
Malcolm’s family had to experience a lot of harassment because his father was an activist and this eventually led to his fathers death when he was just 6 years and his mother sent to a mental asylum when he was 13. He had witnessed a lot of trauma and adversity early on in his life.
When he was 20, Malcom was arrested for larceny and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but after seven years of jail term he was granted parole. Malcolm committed to improve himself and spent hours on reading extensively about philosophy and religion. He embraced Islam and the ideology of black nationalism. He soon became an influential leader
He later left the Nation Of Islam and started his own movement which aimed at bringing more international attention. Unfortunately he could not gather much steam through his work and was assassinated on February 21st, 1965 during a meeting in Harlem. Malcolm X was an advocate of universal freedom. Millions drew inspiration for him.
We have compiled the best ever Malcolm X quotes for all of you. Have a look!
Also, if you’re a student who is reading this article you can get online assignment help to have a great chance for dealing with one of the best writing experts.
73 Powerful Malcolm X Quotes
1. “Anytime you see someone more successful than you are, they are doing something you aren’t.” – Malcolm X
2. “If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.” – Malcolm X
3. In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.” – Malcolm X
4. “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” – Malcolm X
5. “So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.” – Malcolm X
6. “If not now then when, if not me then who?” – Malcolm X
7. “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
8. “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X
9. “If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.” – Malcolm X
10. “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
11. “A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can’t play the part of a wise man.” – Malcolm X
12. “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X
13. “We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.” – Malcolm X
14. “Stumbling is not falling.” – Malcolm X
15. “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” – Malcolm X
16. “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
17. “Change is only a good thing if you change in a good way.” – Malcolm X
18. “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
19. “Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again.” – Malcolm X
20. “You have to wake the people up first, then you’ll get action.” – Malcolm X
21. “All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.” – Malcolm X
22. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.” – Malcolm X
23. “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
24. “Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly.” – Malcolm X
25. “Power doesn’t back up in the face of a smile, or in the face of a threat of some kind of nonviolent loving action. It’s not the nature of power to back up in the face of anything but some more power.” – Malcolm X
26. “Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner. You must be eating 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
27. “To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace.” – Malcolm X
28. “Segregation is that which is forced upon an inferior by a superior. Separation is done voluntarily by two equals.” – Malcolm X
29. “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, 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
30. “Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.” – Malcolm X Quotes
31. “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. I have always kept an open mind, a flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of the intelligent search for truth.” – Malcolm X
32. “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
33. “Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression, because power, real power, comes from our conviction which produces action, uncompromising action.” – Malcolm X
34. “I don’t even call it violence when it’s in self defense; I call it intelligence.” – Malcolm X
35. “I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.” – Malcolm X
36. “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
37. “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
38. “Without education, you are not going anywhere in this world.” – Malcolm X
39. “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
40. “You can’t legislate good will – that comes through education.” – Malcolm X Quotes on Education
41. “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.” – Malcolm X
42. “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
43. “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
44. “When you live in a poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have poor schools. When you have poor schools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When you get a poor education, you can only work in a poor-paying job. And that poor-paying job enables you to live again in a poor neighborhood. So, it’s a very vicious cycle.” – Malcolm X
45. “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 in me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.” – Malcolm X
46. “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
47. “Read absolutely everything you get your hands on because you never know where you’ll get an idea from.” – Malcolm X
48. “I believe in human rights for everyone, and none of us is qualified to judge each other and that none of us should therefore have that authority.” – Malcolm X
49. “People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.” – Malcolm X Quotes on Education and Life
50. “We cannot think of uniting with others, until after we have first united among ourselves. We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.” – Malcolm X
51. “Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and thereby increase self-respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X
52. “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
53. “It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody’s blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world free themselves, the capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely.” – Malcolm X
54. “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
55. “Who taught you to hate the colour of your skin? Who taught you to hate the texture of your hair? You should ask yourself who taught you to hate being what God made you.” – Malcolm X
56. “What kind of a man wants a woman today that cannot hold a conversation.” – Malcolm X
57. “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. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you’re going east, and you will be walking east when you think you’re going west.” – Malcolm X
58. “When ‘I’ replaced with ‘We’, even the illness becomes wellness.” – Malcolm X
59. “Only those who have already experienced a revolution within themselves can reach out effectively to help others.” – Malcolm X
60. “How can anyone be against love?” – Malcolm X Quotes on Love
61. “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. Those of you who are Christian probably believe in the same God, because I think you believe in the God Who created the universe. That’s the One we believe in, the One Who created universe – the only difference being you call Him God and we call Him Allah. The Jews call Him Jehovah. If you could understand Hebrew, you would probably call Him Jehovah too. If you could understand Arabic, you would probably call Him Allah.” – Malcolm X
62. “Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people.” – Malcolm X
63. “The mother is the first teacher of the child. The message she gives that child, that child gives to the world.” – Malcolm X
64. “Learn to see, listen, and think for yourself.” – Malcolm X
65. “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
66. “The mental flexibility of the wise man permits him to keep an open mind and enables him to readjust himself whenever it becomes necessary for a change.” – Malcolm X
67. “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
68. “Anytime anyone is enslaved or in any way deprived of his liberty, that person, as a human being, as far as I’m concerned he is justified to resort to whatever methods necessary to bring about his liberty again.” – Malcolm X
69. “The only thing power respects, is power.” – Malcolm X
70. “Daring to reach, to climb, to crawl, to scratch, to get back up when you’ve been knocked down, to push forward – ever forward – to forgive. It means sacrificing everything if necessary, to carve out a place for your own existence. It means living.” – Malcolm X
71. “You can always chase a dream but it will not count if you never catch it.” – Malcolm X
72. “It is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest light can come; it is only after extreme grief that the greatest joy can come.” – Malcolm X Quotes
73. “Hatred and anger are powerless when met with kindness.” – Malcolm X
Few More Bonus Malcom X Quotes on Religion
74. “I am a Muslim and…my religion makes me be against all forms of racism. It keeps me from judging any man by the color of his skin. It teaches me to judge him by his deeds.” – Malcolm X
75. “How can you thank a man for giving you what’s already yours?” – Malcolm X
