Top 350 Malcolm X Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If not now then when, if not me then who?”

— Malcolm X

2. “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Preparation Quotes, Future Quotes, Inspirational Quotes for Students

3. “Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Education Quotes, Study Quotes, Meaningful Quotes, Quality Quotes, Knowledge Quotes

4. “If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Integrity Quotes

5. “If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Success Quotes

6. “My alma mater was books, a good library. I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Quotes About Books And Reading, Study Quotes, Knowledge Quotes, Curiosity Quotes

7. “People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Learning Quotes, Deep Quotes About Life, Transformation Quotes, Impact Quotes, Influence Quotes

8. “We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Empathy Quotes, Sunday Inspirational Quotes, Harmony Quotes, Quotes About People, Diversity Quotes

9. “Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Empowerment Quotes, Taking Action Quotes, Resistance Quotes, Fighting Quotes

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

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Morality Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Justice Quotes

11. “So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Resistance Quotes, Quotes About Trying, Struggle Quotes, Ambition Quotes

12. “We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Self-Worth Quotes, Identity Quotes, Self-Belief Quotes

13. “Education is our passport to the future.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Learning Quotes, Future Quotes, Inspirational Quotes for Students, Smart Quotes, Graduation Quotes

14. “By any means necessary.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Changing the World Quotes, Fighting Quotes, Not Giving Up Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Freedom Quotes

15. “Read absolutely everything you get your hands on because you’ll never know where you’ll get an idea from.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Quotes About Ideas

16. “You get your freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get it. Then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Resistance Quotes, Fighting Quotes, Freedom Quotes

17. “I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Fighting Quotes, Truth Quotes, Different Quotes, Justice Quotes

18. “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Changing the World Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Peace Quotes, Freedom Quotes

19. “We can’t teach what we don’t know, and we can’t lead where we can’t go.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Knowledge Quotes

20. “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Resistance Quotes, Justice Quotes

21. “Learn to see, listen, and think for yourself.”

— Malcolm X

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

— Malcolm X

23. “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Influence Quotes

24. “The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Impact Quotes, Deep Quotes, Suffering Quotes, Rights Quotes

25. “I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading has opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Quotes About Books And Reading, Education Quotes, Lifelong Learning Quotes, Reading Quotes

26. “The mother is the first teacher of the child. The message she gives that child, that child gives to the world.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Teaching Quotes, Quotes About Children, Motherhood Quotes, Mother and Son Quotes

27. “There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Being Strong Quotes, Adversity Quotes

28. “Only a fool would let his enemy teach his children.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes

29. “Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.”

— Malcolm X

30. “Allah always gives you signs, when you are with Him, that He is with you.”

— Malcolm X

31. “And just because you have colleges and universities doesn’t mean you have education.”

— Malcolm X

32. “Usually when people are sad, they don’t do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.”

— Malcolm X

33. “One day, may we all meet together in the light of understanding.”

— Malcolm X

34. “A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can’t play the part of a wise man.”

— Malcolm X

35. “A man without any history is like a tree without roots.”

— Malcolm X

36. “The mental flexibility of the wise man permits him to keep an open mind and enables him to readjust himself whenever it becomes necessary for a change.”

— Malcolm X

37. “My alma mater was books, a good library.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Quotes About Books And Reading, Lifelong Learning Quotes, Book Quotes

38. “The only thing power respects, is power.”

— Malcolm X

39. “If you’re not ready to die for it, take the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.”

— Malcolm X

Featured in: Hard Hitting Quotes, Warrior Quotes, Freedom Quotes

40. “I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don’t believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn’t want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn’t know how to return the treatment.”

— Malcolm X

41. “I live like a man who’s dead already! I have no fear whatsoever of anybody or anything.”

— Malcolm X

42. “The only persons who really changed history are those who changed men’s thinking about themselves.”

— Malcolm X

43. “Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.”

— Malcolm X

44. “The price of freedom is death.”

— Malcolm X

45. “You can’t hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.”

— Malcolm X

46. “I want to be remembered as someone who was sincere. Even if I made mistakes, they were made in sincerity. If I was wrong, I was wrong in sincerity.”

— Malcolm X

47. “I, for one, will join in with anyone – I don’t care what color you are – as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.”

— Malcolm X

48. “Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.”

— Malcolm X

49. “To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal. You see, I could conceive death, but I could not conceive betrayal.”

— Malcolm X

50. “You can’t have capitalism without racism.”

— Malcolm X