Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.

Either you are a citizen or you are not a citizen at all. If you are citizen, you are free; if youre not a citizen you are a slave.

This was my first lesson about gambling: if you see somebody winning all the time, he isn't gambling, he's cheating. Later on in life, if I were continuously losing in any gambling situation, I would watch very closely.

You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.

Instead of the Negro leaders having the black man begging for a chance to - to dine in white restaurants, the Negro leader should be showing the black man how to do something to strengthen his own economy.

When I am dead--I say it that way because from the things I know, I do not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form--I want you to just watch and see if I'm not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with "hate". He will make use of me dead, as he has made use of me alive, as a convenient symbol, of "hatred"--and that will help him escape facing the truth that all I have been doing is holding up a mirror to reflect, to show, the history of unspeakable crimes that his race has committed against my race.

Whoever is standing up telling the white man that his position is unjust and that the black people should not have to wait for any Supreme Court, Congress or Senate to legislate, or even the president to issue any kind of - of a proclamation to better the condition of our people, if a N - if he - if a, if a Negro leader is standing up, making that point clear, then he's all right with us.