“We didn’t have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next.”

I learned to put my trust in God and to see Him as my strength.

I think when you say you’re happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for.

Knowing what must be done does away with fear.

Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die – the dream of freedom and peace.

I will no longer act on the outside in a way that contradicts the truth that I hold deeply inside. I will no longer act as if I were less than the whole person I know myself inwardly to be.

I had decided that I would not go anywhere with a piece of paper in my hand asking white folks for any favors. I had made that decision myself, as an individual.

Nothing in the Golden Rule says that others will treat us as we have treated them. It only says that we must treat others in a way that we would want to be treated.

I want to be treated like a human being.

If I stayed angry at other people, I would miss finding friends among those I was angry with.

Why do you all push us around?

As long as we have bigotry and crime, we have work to do.

I was a person with dignity and self-respect, and I should not set my sights lower than anybody else just because I was black.

As long as people use tactics to oppress or restrict other people from being free, there is work to be done.

There is work to do; that is why I cannot stop or sit still.

I see the energy of young people as a real force for positive change.

Black women are very capable of leading our organizations. I believe that firmly.

The whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me, and I am not hard to swindle because I do not know how to read and write.

Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude and simple polity.

The most base of men can be civilized through suffering.

Men are at every stage of evolution, from the most barbarous to the most developed; men are found of lofty intelligence, but also of the most unevolved mentality; in one place there is a highly developed and complex civilisation, in another a crude and simple polity.

If there hadn’t been women we’d still be squatting in a cave eating raw meat, because we made civilization in order to impress our girlfriends.

When work goes out of style we may expect to see civilization totter and fall.

How carelessly imperial power vivisected ancient civilizations. Palestine and Kashmir are imperial Britain’s festering, blood-drenched gifts to the modem world. Both are fault lines in the raging international con�icts of today.

A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.