African American Quotes
250 African American Quotes
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Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough. Not only have I found that when I talk to the little flower or to the little peanut they will give up their secrets, but I have found that when I silently commune with people they give up their secrets also – if you love them enough.
George Washington Carver
And the thing that pleases me most is the fact that you are a very young man and have caught the vision, which means that you are going to keep the progressive fires burning until they act as a leaven and stir up the mass of thinkers, as it is beginning to do already.
George Washington Carver
I am not a finisher… I am a blazer of trails. Others must take up the various trails of truth, and carry them on.
George Washington Carver
The mind does not take it’s complexion from the skin.
Frederick Douglass
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.
Frederick Douglass
[In 1889] Men first make slaves then make laws.
Frederick Douglass
Speech is the lever that moves the world.
Frederick Douglass
A man’s bread and butter is only insured when he works for it.
Frederick Douglass
[In 1849] The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.
Frederick Douglass
If he knows enough to be hanged, he knows enough to vote.
Frederick Douglass
Give him a bad master, and he aspires to a good master; give him a good master, and he wishes to become his own master. Such is human nature.
Frederick Douglass
To make a contented slave, you must make a thoughtless one.
Frederick Douglass
[In 1865] Slavery is not abolished until the black man has the ballot.
Frederick Douglass
The world moves, but only by fighting every inch of its disputed way.
Frederick Douglass
Men are whipped oftenest who are whipped easiest.
Frederick Douglass
I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity.
Frederick Douglass
The true basis of rights is the capacity of individuals.
Frederick Douglass
A person is at least as sacred as its incident, property.
Frederick Douglass
What we call money is only stored labor.
Frederick Douglass
I have not the slightest wish to be embroiled in personal controversy with anti-slavery men of any sort.
Frederick Douglass
I have gone through all of this. I have had fifty years of it, and yet I have not lost either heart or hope.
Frederick Douglass
I have no doubt whatever of the future.
Frederick Douglass
Advancement is achievable only through patient, enduring, honest, unremitting, and indefatigable work… we may explain success mainly by one word and that word is WORK! WORK!! WORK!!! WORK!!!!
Frederick Douglass
It may be with men as someone has said about tea: if you wish to get its strength you must put it into hot water.
Frederick Douglass
You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.
Frederick Douglass
There is no obstacle in the path of young people who are poor or members of minority groups that hard work and preparation cannot cure.
Barbara Jordan
It does not matter where you came from, or who your parents were. What counts is who you are.
Barbara Jordan
Life is not a holiday but an education.
Barbara Jordan
One thing is clear to me: We as human beings must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves.
Barbara Jordan
The imperative is to define what is right and do it.
Barbara Jordan
How to die, we got that. But we were missing how to live. I do not recall any message of joy or love or happiness generated out of this experience. It was a confining, restricting mandate. I do not feel free to do anything other than what was presented to me as the way one must proceed; that whatever you do in this life has to be in preparation for that other life. So on balance, my church relationship was, without doubt, a very imprisoning kind of experience.
Barbara Jordan
The stakes are too high for government to be a spectator sport.
Barbara Jordan
Throw away your crutches and quit complaining because you are black.
Barbara Jordan
We must exchange the philosophy of excuse – what I am is beyond my control – for the philosophy of responsibility.
Barbara Jordan
All my growth and development led me to believe that if you really do the right thing, and if you play by the rules, that you’re going to be able to do whatever you want to do with your life.
Barbara Jordan
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.
Barbara Jordan
No one need be afraid. No one need be afraid that officers who commit oppression will pass with immunity.
Barbara Jordan
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