Malcolm X Long Quotations

Nonviolence is fine as long as it works.

If you are Black, you were born in jail, in the North as well as the South. Stop talking about the South. As long as you are South of the Canadian border, you are South.

As long as a white man does it, it's alright, a black man is supposed to have no feelings. But when a black man strikes back he's an extremist, he's supposed to sit passively and have no feelings, be nonviolent, and love his enemy no matter what kind of attack, verbal or otherwise, he's supposed to take it. But if he stands up in any way and tries to defend himself, then he's an extremist.

As long as you are convinced you have never done anything, you can never do anything.

You're living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution A time where there's got to be a change. People in power have misused it And now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built And the only way is going to be built is with extreme methods And I for one will join with anyone, don't care what color you are As long as you want change this miserable condition that exists on this earth

I, for one, will join in with anyone -- I don't care what color you are -- as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.

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, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.

Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me from London, asking questions. One was "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books." You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I'm not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man.

I am not a Republican nor a Democrat, nor an American, and got sense enough to know it. I am one of the 22 million Black victims of the Democrats, and one of the 22 million Black victims of the Republicans, and one of the 22 million Black victims of Americanism.... You and I have never seen Democracy, all we've seen is hypocracy.... If you go to jail, so what. If you are Black, you were born in jail. If you are Black, you were born in jail, in the North as well as the South. Stop talking about the South. As long as you are South of the Canadian border, you are South.

Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.