This is my page of inspirational quotes. They are arranged by category so skim through them and find your inspiration of the day.
African Americans:
"The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights that America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans." Malcolm X "Racism: the Cancer that is Destroying America" in Egyptian Gazette (August 25,1964)
"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom." "Prospects for Freedom in 1965," Malcolm X
"It's just like when you've got some coffee that's too black, which means it's too strong. What do you do? You integrate it with cream, you make it weak. But if you pour too much cream in it, you won't even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep." "Message to the Grass Roots,"- Malcolm X
"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'" "Address at March on Washington," Martin Luther King Jr.
"But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must to be guilty of wrongful deeds." Address at March on Washington, Martin Luther King Jr.
"An American, a Negro . . .two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, who dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." W.E.B. Du Bois -The Souls of Black Folk
"The Afro-American experience is the only real culture that America has. Basically, every American tries to walk, talk, dress and behave like African Americans." Hugh Masakela- International Herald Tribune
"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring on's souls by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity." W.E.B. Du Bois- The Souls of Black Folk
"The burden of being black is that you have to be superior just to be equal. But the glory of it is that, once you achieve, you have achieved, indeed." Jesse Jackson Christian Science Monitor
"If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism." Spike Lee- Interview in i-D
"What then did you expect when you unbound the gag that muted those black mouths? That they would chant your praises? Did you think that when those heads that our fathers had forcibly bowed down to the ground were raised again, you would find adoration in their eyes? Jean-paul Satre- Anthologie de la Nouvelle Poesie Negre et Malgache
"There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation" Alice Walker-Possessing the Secret of Joy
Women:
"The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance." Maya Angelou I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Simone De Beauvoir The Second Sex
"There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through the head down to the feet." Maya Angelou Interview: "A Conversation with Maya Angelou"
"Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything." Anita Brookner- Mr. Neville in Hotel du Lac.
"Woman is not born: she is made. In the making, her humanity is destroyed. She becomes symbol of this, symbol of that: mother of the earth, slut of the universe; but she never becomes herself because it is forbidden for her to do so." Andrea Dworkin- Pornography
"Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little." Samuel Johnson- Letter 18,Aug. 1763
"Aren't women prudes if they don't and prostitutes if they do?" Kate Millet- Speech, 22 March 1975, Women Writers' Conference
"Woman is the dominant sex. Men have to do all sorts of stuff to prove that they are worthy of woman's attention." Camille Paglia- Interview in SPIN "The Rape Debate"
Women and Men:
"The cocks may crow, but it's the hen that lays the egg." Margaret Thatcher-Sunday Times London 9, April 1989
"The white American man makes the white American women maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn't need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder- in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever." Maya Angelou-A Conversation with Maya Angelou
Courage & Strength
"Courage is the price that Life exacts for granting peace, The soul that knows it not, knows no release From little things." Amelia Earhart-Courage
"Strength is a matter of a made up mind." John Beecher
"It is truly said: It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires great strength to decide what to do." Chow Ching
"Our real problem, then, is not our strength today, it is rather the vital necessity of actuon today to ensure our strength tomorrow." Dwight D. Eisnehower
Freedom
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." Martin Luther King Jr.-Letter from Birmingham Jail
"There's only one free person in this society, and he is white and male." Hazel Scott- Quoted in Ms. (New York, Nov. 1974)
Fear
"The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care." F.H. Bradley- Aphorisms
"By the time we are women, fear is as familiar to us as air. It is our element. We live in it, we inhale it, we exhale it, and most of the time we do not even notice it. Instead of "I am afraid," we say "I don't want to" or "I don't know how," or "I can't." Andrea Dworkin- The Sexual Politics of fear and Courage