Top 90 Marcus Garvey Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If you haven't confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started. ”

— Marcus Garvey

Featured in: Success Quotes, Confidence Quotes, Self-Esteem Quotes, Impact Quotes, Empowering Quotes

2. “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”

— Marcus Garvey

Featured in: Identity Quotes, Legacy Quotes, Culture Quotes, History Quotes

3. “Take advantage of every opportunity; where there is none, make it for yourself.”

— Marcus Garvey

Featured in: Hustle Quotes

4. “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind.”

— Marcus Garvey

5. “The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind.”

— Marcus Garvey

6. “With confidence, you have won before you have started.”

— Marcus Garvey

7. “We must give up the silly idea of folding our hands and waiting on God to do everything for us. If God had intended for that, then he would not have given us a mind. Whatever you want in life, you must make up your mind to do it for yourself.”

— Marcus Garvey

8. “Be Black, buy Black, think Black, and all else will take care of itself.”

— Marcus Garvey

9. “The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness.”

— Marcus Garvey

10. “Let us not try to be the best or worst of others, but let us make the effort to be the best of ourselves.”

— Marcus Garvey

11. “Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm.”

— Marcus Garvey

12. “Do not remove the kinks from your hair – remove them from your brain.”

— Marcus Garvey

13. “The pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is mightier than them both put together.”

— Marcus Garvey

14. “Look to Africa, when a black king shall be crowned for the day of deliverance is at hand!”

— Marcus Garvey

15. “When all else fails to organize the people, conditions will.”

— Marcus Garvey

16. “What you do to-day that is worthwhile, inspires others to act at some future time.”

— Marcus Garvey

17. “Up, you mighty race, accomplish what you will.”

— Marcus Garvey

18. “Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.”

— Marcus Garvey

19. “Intelligence rules the world, ignorance carries the burden...”

— Marcus Garvey

20. “Lift up yourselves, men, take yourselves out of the mire and hitch your hopes to the very stars themselves. Let no man pull you down, let no man destroy your ambition, because man is but your companion, your equal; man is your brother; he is not your Lord, he is not your sovereign master.”

— Marcus Garvey

21. “Fascism is the cult of organised murder, invented by the arch-enemies of society. It tends to destroy civilization and revert man to his most barbarous state. Mussolini and Hitler might well be called the devils of an age, for they are playing hell with civilization.”

— Marcus Garvey

22. “I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa; there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there.”

— Marcus Garvey

23. “Never forget that intelligence rules the world and ignorance carries the burden. Therefore, remove yourself as far as possible from ignorance and seek as far as possible to be intelligent.”

— Marcus Garvey

24. “Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom.”

— Marcus Garvey

25. “Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men.”

— Marcus Garvey

26. “If we as a people realized the greatness from which we came we would be less likely to disrespect ourselves.”

— Marcus Garvey

27. “I trust that you will so live today as to realize that you are masters of your own destiny, masters of your fate; if there is anything you want in this world, it is for you to strike out with confidence and faith in self and reach for it.”

— Marcus Garvey

28. “Be as proud of your race today as our as our fathers were in days of yore. We have beautiful history, and we shall create another in the future that will astonish the world.”

— Marcus Garvey

29. “The thing to do is to get organized; keep separated and you will be exploited, you will be robbed, you will be killed. Get organized and you will compel the world to respect you.”

— Marcus Garvey

30. “Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa! Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free, redeemed and mighty nation. Let Africa be a bright star among the constellation of nations.”

— Marcus Garvey

31. “Take the kinks out your mind, not your hair.”

— Marcus Garvey

32. “I like honesty and fair play.”

— Marcus Garvey

33. “Black men, you were once great; you shall be great again. Lose not courage or faith, go forward.”

— Marcus Garvey

34. “There can be no peace among men and nations, so long as the strong continues to oppress the weak, so long as injustice is done to other peoples, just so long we will have cause for war, and make a lasting peace an impossibility.”

— Marcus Garvey

Featured in: Strong Quotes

35. “Death is the end of all life in the individual or the thing; if physical, the crumbling of the body into dust from whence it came. He who lives not uprightly, dies completely in the crumbling of the physical body, but he who lives well, transforms himself from that which is mortal, to immortal.”

— Marcus Garvey

36. “Progress is the attraction that moves humanity.”

— Marcus Garvey

37. “Lose not courage, lose not faith, go forward.”

— Marcus Garvey

38. “LIFE is that existence that is given to man to live for a purpose, to live to his own satisfaction and pleasure, providing he forgets not the God who created him and who expects a spiritual obedience and observation of the moral laws that He has inspired.”

— Marcus Garvey

39. “Look to Africa, for there a king will be crowned.”

— Marcus Garvey

40. “The whole world is run on bluff. No race, no nation, no man has any divine right to take advantage of others. Why allow the other fellow to bluff you?”

— Marcus Garvey

41. “Whatsoever things common to man, that man has done, man can do.”

— Marcus Garvey

42. “We were the first Fascists, when we had 100,000 disciplined men, and were training children, Mussolini was still an unknown. Mussolini copied our Fascism.”

— Marcus Garvey

43. “Hungry men have no respect for law, authority or human life.”

— Marcus Garvey

44. “No two persons think alike, even if they outwardly profess the same faith, so we have as many religions in Christianity as we have believers.”

— Marcus Garvey

45. “Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences.”

— Marcus Garvey

46. “To see your enemy and know him is a part of the complete education of man.”

— Marcus Garvey

47. “Great principles, great ideals know no nationality.”

— Marcus Garvey

48. “The whole world is run on bluff.”

— Marcus Garvey

49. “You must not mistake lip-service and noise for bravery and service.”

— Marcus Garvey

50. “There is no force like success, and that is why the individual makes all effort to surround himself throughout life with the evidence of it; as of the individual, so should it be of the nation.”

— Marcus Garvey