“We’re taught at such an early age to be against the communists, yet most of us don’t have the faintest idea what communism is. Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is.”

People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.

If you’re deaf, dumb, and blind to what’s happening in the world, you’re under no obligation to do anything. But if you know what’s happening and you don’t do anything but sit on your ass, then you’re nothing but a punk.

When I was a child, if someone had talked to me about buying water, I would have thought it was a joke.

Black people will never be free unless black women participate in every aspect of our struggle, on every level of our struggle.

It is our duty to fight for our freedom. It is our duty to win. We must love each other and support each other. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

If we are not committed to saving this earth we will be buying designer air filters and gas masks.

I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless, robots who protect them and their property.

No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.

We need to be weapons of mass construction, weapons of mass love. It’s not enough just to change the system. We need to change ourselves.

Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.

I don’t have to live up to that Superwoman myth. I can cry and be human and lean on people who take care of me. That can be very liberating.

The methods of peaceful protests are not capable of being effective, because in reality most people pay little attention to things that are not abrasive.

Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory.

Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that few rebels can ever afford.

I believe in life. And I have seen the death parade.

The first part of planning is to believe that you can put that plan into practice.

The religious persecution of the ages has been done under what was claimed to be the command of God.

Constitution is not a mere lawyers document, it is a vehicle of Life, and its spirit is always the spirit of Age.

Don’t be afraid to love all your broken pieces. They will finally wether with the waters of ages, shrinking into friendly gemlike pebbles that are soft to your soul.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

At my age, there is really only one big surprise left, and I’d just as soon leave it a mystery.

Some people are old at 18 and some are young at 90. Time is a concept that humans created.

By time and age full many things are taught.

No matter your age, you are here today, so there is time.