I think teaching a man to hate himself is much more criminal than teaching a man to hate someone else.

I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do.

As bad as I was, as much trouble and worry as I caused my mother, I loved her.

The government has departments to deal with the special interest groups that make themselves heard and felt. A Department of Agriculture cares for the farmers' needs. There is a Department of Health, Education and Welfare. There is a Department of the Interior - in which the Indians are included. Is the farmer, the doctor, the Indian, the greatest problem in America today? No - it is the black man! There ought to be a Pentagon-sized Washington department dealing with every segment of the black man's problems.

You don't do anything to further your stay aboard a ship that you see is going to go down to the bottom of the ocean.

It is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest light can come; it is only after extreme grief that the greatest joy can come.

In my 39 years on this earth, the Holy city of Makka had been the first time I had ever stood before the Creator of all and felt like a complete human being