The trick is to love somebody.... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

It is astonishing that in a country so devoted to the individual, so many people should be afraid to speak.

Tell me, he said, "What is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. what are they waiting for?" "Well […] I guess people wait in order to make sure of what they feel." "And when you have waited—-has it made you sure?

It must be remembered that in those great days I was considered to be an "integrationist" - this was never, quite, my own idea of myself - and Malcolm was considered to be a "racist in reverse." This formulation, in terms of power - and power is the arena in which racism is acted out - means absolutely nothing: it may even be described as a cowardly formulation. The powerless, by definition, can never be "racists," for they can never make the world pay for what they feel or fear except by the suicidal endeavor which makes them fanatics or revolutionaries, or both.

People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction.

The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.