Revolutions are never peaceful.
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.
America is such a paradoxical society, hypocritically paradoxical, that if you don’t have some humor, you’ll crack up.
It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That’s the only thing that can save this country.
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.
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. Or we’ll find ourselves standing in the rain, with the umbrella inside the door.
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.
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.
The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.
Everybody shall be accepted no matter what they stand for, you are not always going to agree on their faith.
Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power.
It’ll be the ballot or the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death.
There is nothing in our book, the Koran, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent.
The black man in Africa had mastered the arts and sciences. He knew the course of the stars in the universe before the man up in Europe knew that the earth wasn’t flat.
You don’t have a revolution in which you love your enemy, and you don’t have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems.
It is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.
You and I have never seen democracy – all we’ve seen is hypocrisy.
The Constitution of the United States of America clearly affirms the right of every American citizen to bear arms. And as Americans, we will not give up a single right guaranteed under the Constitution.
Armed with the knowledge of our past, we can with confidence charter a course for our future. Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle. We must take hold of it and forge the future with the past.
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!