Whoever debases others is debasing himself.

Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization of ourselves; the loss of our own identity is the price we pay for our annulment of his.

Pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.

The relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others in order to end the racial nightmare and acheive our country.

Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.

You write in order to change the world.