Inspiring Voices: A Collection of Powerful Quotes by Black Leaders

"It's okay to be discouraged. It's natural. But in the discouragement, find your courage."

- Tabitha Brown

"Justice may be slow and invisible, but it always renders its true verdict in the end."

- Colson Whitehead

"If we are truly a great nation, the truth cannot destroy us."

- Nikole Hannah-Jones

"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

"Truth does not change, only our awareness of it."

- Malcolm X

"You don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking."

- Maya Angelou

"All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That's terrible, but we do nothing. We say nothing. We let other people fight their own battles. We remain silent because silence is easier... When we say nothing, when we do nothing, we are consenting to these trespasses against us."

- Roxane Gay

"The fact is that justice is indivisible; injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"America loves the myth of a meritocracy more than anything else, because it lets us ignore the reality of the impact of bigotry."

- Mikki Kendall

"And so the world watches America—the only great power in history made up of people from every corner of the planet, comprising every race and faith and cultural practice—to see if our experiment in democracy can work. To see if we can do what no other nation has ever done. To see if we can actually live up to the meaning of our creed."

- Barack Obama

"What the people want is simple: they want an America as good as its promise."

- Barbara Jordan

"We actually don't give a f**k about shiny, polished candidates. We care about justice."

- Patrisse Khan-Cullors

"I chose to speak truth. Even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it leaves people feeling uneasy. When you speak truth, people won't always walk away feeling good—and sometimes you won't feel so great about the reaction you receive. But at least all parties will walk away knowing it was an honest conversation."

- Kamala Harris

"That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare it, because being American is more than a pride we inherit—It's the past we step into, and how we repair it."

- Amanda Gorman

"Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."

- Assata Shakur

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man."

- Colson Whitehead

"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

"To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships."

- W.E.B. DuBois

"Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of 'wrong' ideas."

- Octavia E. Butler

"But for a society built on exploitation, there is no greater threat than having no one left to oppress."

- N. K. Jemisin

"Whoever debases others is debasing himself."

- James Baldwin

"All of us—who might have probed space, or cured cancer, or built industries—were, instead, black victims of the white man's American social system."

- Malcolm X

"Any community seriously concerned with its own freedom has to be concerned about other peoples’ freedom as well."

- Assata Shakur

"Now no one can fault the conqueror for writing history the way he sees it, and certainly not for digesting human events and discovering their patterns according to his point of view. But we can fault him for not owning up to what his point of view is."

- Toni Morrison

"I admit that the slave does sometimes sing, dance and appear to be merry. But what does this prove? It only proves to my mind, that though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman."

- Frederick Douglass

"We were not actors but acted upon. We were not contributors, just recipients. White people enslaved us, and white people freed us. Black people could choose either to take advantage of that freedom or to squander it, as our depictions in the media seemed to suggest so many of us were doing."

- Nikole Hannah-Jones

"Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat."

- Ralph Ellison

"We must abolish the entitlement that deludes us into believing that we have the right to make assumptions about people's identities and project those assumptions onto their genders and bodies."

- Janet Mock

"We say, hold on to the real facts of history as they are, but complete such knowledge by studying also the history of races and nations which have been purposely ignored."

- Carter G. Woodson

"Are you going to let someone else's view of who you should be, and what you should do, hold you back?"

- Charmaine Wilkerson

"It's not till she's outside that she realizes what she was looking for in there. What she's been looking for all these years. What she realizes now she no longer needs. Permission."

- Tochi Onyebuchi

"There's nothing easy about finding your way through a world loaded with obstacles that others can't or don't see."

- Michelle Obama

"If I don't poke my head out of my shell and show people who I am, all anyone will ever think I am is my shell."

- Shonda Rhimes

"I knew my life would be a fight, and I realized this: I had it in me."

- Viola Davis

"I learnt that the only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you’ll finish it, even if in the beginning you think you can’t do it at all."

- Langston Hughes

"When your dreams are bigger than the places you find yourself in, sometimes you need to seek out your own reminders that there is more. And there is always more waiting for you on the other side of fear."

- Elaine Welteroth

"Courage does not always roar."

- Tomi Adeyemi

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end."

- Michelle Obama

"Growth requires movement. And often, the only way forward is through an exit door."

- Alicia Keys

"No one ever told her how to get her heart to abandon a dream once the dreamer stops dreaming."

- Kaia Alderson

"If you're too weak to handle failure and disappointment, then you're too weak to handle success, which will only end up damaging your life and happiness."

- Kevin Hart

"No man knows what he can do until he tries."

- Carter G. Woodson

"Here’s to us being afraid and doing it anyway."

- Gabrielle Union

"That's all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don't know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won't matter if we don't survive these times."

- Octavia E. Butler

"I did infer, however, that submitting to melancholy would undo the labors of those who had come before me, that I had an obligation to resist instead of giving in. I rose unsteadily to my feet, aware of my shackles, but determined to somehow overcome them."

- Jabari Asim

"Question yourself, yes, but don't doubt yourself. There is a difference."

- Charmaine Wilkerson

"Be brave. Be amazing. Be worthy."

- Shonda Rhimes

"To those who’ve survived: Breathe. That’s it. Once more. Good. You’re good. Even if you’re not, you’re alive. That is a victory."

- N. K. Jemisin

"The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive."

- Malcolm X

"Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books—where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables as we did in Kansas."

- Langston Hughes

"Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read... Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds."

- Roxane Gay

"So my advice to other young writers: Read widely. Study other writers. Be thoughtful, Then go out and do the work of changing the form, finding your own voice, and saying what you need to say. Be fearless. And care."

- Glory Edim

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

- Maya Angelou

"With really good literature you’re allowed to take multiple journeys as your perspective shifts over time. It continues to resonate, as you find different ways of entering and engaging with the narrative."

- Glory Edim

"Art is not mere entertainment or decoration, it has meaning, and we both want and need to fathom that meaning."

- Toni Morrison

"To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread."

- James Baldwin

"Discovering what you don’t want is just as important as finding out what you do."

- Elaine Welteroth

"My biggest discovery was that you can literally re-create your life."

- Viola Davis

"Education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. Nevertheless, men strive to know."

- W.E.B. Du Bois

"I started teaching myself to contort my rage into more valuable shapes; it doesn't disappear that way, just works for you instead of against you."

- Nikole Hannah-Jones

"You hand us the fatback of a pig and we use it to make savory greens. You hand us a fledgling radio station and we turn it into a media empire ... We are alchemists. So our ability to transform our lived experience—even the ones plagued by trauma—is the very reason why we should internalize our acceptance and release ourselves from any obligation to be something other than who we are, individually and collectively."

- Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts

"Real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better."

- Carter G. Woodson

"We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings?"

- Sidney Poitier

"Children don't carry the weight of history, so their capacity for heavy things might be greater. But few adults believe this, so we pass along only what we think they can bear. Children wonder later why we didn't tell them everything so they could avoid our mistakes."

- Daniel Black

"More people's lives have been shaped by violence than we like to think. And more people's lives have been shaped by silence than we think."

- Charmaine Wilkerson

"Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own."

- Michelle Obama

"A writer's life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity."

- Toni Morrison

"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning."

- Maya Angelou

"I believe that each of us carries a bit of inner brightness, something entirely unique and individual, a flame that's worth protecting. When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it. When we learn to foster what's unique in the people around us, we become better able to build compassionate communities and make meaningful change."

- Michelle Obama

"History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning."

- Carter G. Woodson

"I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man."

- Frederick Douglass

"Sometimes being a good ally is about opening the door for someone instead of insisting that your voice is the only one that matters."

- Mikki Kendall

"For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite one another in."

- Michelle Obama

"I believe in living. I believe in birth. I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth. And I believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, seasick sailors, can still be guided him to port."

- Assata Shakur

"I call something a miracle when an ordinary person achieves something extraordinary. We all have the potential to create miraculous changes."

- Tina Turner

"If you know what you want, ask for it. And be specific—you just might get it."

- Elaine Welteroth

"If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others."

- Michelle Obama

"Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it."

- Ralph Ellison

"No woman has to be respectable to be valuable."

- Mikki Kendall

"Pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you."

- Maya Angelou

"Either you seize what may turn out to be the only chance you have, or you decide you’re willing to live with the knowledge that the chance has passed you by."

- Barack Obama

"Don't sell yourself short. You will meet people along the way who will be lining up to place limits on you. You don't need to beat them to the punch."

- Leslie Odom Jr.

"When life forces you to face yourself, what awaits in the mirror is a gift: vulnerability."

- Alicia Keys

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence."

- Frederick Douglass

"I am what I have become."

- Sidney Poitier

"When children are small, our desires seem small, even if we want the sky. Anything we want seems to be only a matter of time and effort away. It’s too early to imagine what’s already holding you back."

- Ashley C. Ford

"We should seek out all the doors which still remain ajar, however slight the opening might be."

- Angela Y. Davis

"When you don't know your true value, you see the world through the lens of how you don't measure up."

- Cicely Tyson

"Rising from the ashes of my earlier life, I learned that our thoughts, words, and deeds are unified through spiritual practice. They are made whole within us. And when our thoughts, words, and deeds are aligned with our most positive intentions, magic happens."

- Tina Turner

"Your world is only as small as you make it."

- Gabrielle Union

"The truth is, I’ve never been a big believer in destiny. I worry that it encourages resignation in the down-and-out and complacency among the powerful."

- Barack Obama

"You could convince anyone you belonged somewhere if you acted like you did."

- Brit Bennett

"When you can’t find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example."

- Roxane Gay

"My humanness doesn’t insulate me from racism or sexism. In fact, I think I can deal effectively with the world precisely because I am a black woman who is so comfortable in my black-womanness. I know what I can accomplish. And anything I have accomplished, I did so not in spite of being a black woman, but because I am a black woman."

- Gabrielle Union

"Self-definition and self-determination is about the many varied decisions that we make to compose and journey toward ourselves, about the audacity and strength to proclaim, create, and evolve into who we know ourselves to be. It’s okay if your personal definition is in a constant state of flux as you navigate the world."

- Janet Mock

"You were never just you, and you owed it to the people you cared about to remember that. Because the people you loved were part of your identity, too. Perhaps the biggest part."

- Charmaine Wilkerson

"You have to give yourself permission, even when you’re doing it."

- Toni Morrison

"It’s my devout conviction that if I’m not enabling and encouraging the underprivileged and the vulnerable, then I haven’t justified their confidence in me, and I haven’t done sufficient justice to their gifts."

- Billy Porter

"Have a vision. Be demanding."

- Colin Powell

"Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations."

- Dr. Mae Jemison

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

- Frederick Douglass

"The time is always right to do what is right."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination."

- Nelson Mandela

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

- Barack Obama

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."

- Booker T. Washington

"Freedom is never given; it is won."

- A. Philip Randolph

"I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Just don't give up what you're trying to do. Where there is Love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation."

- Arthur Ashe

"You never know which experiences of life are going to be of value . . . You’ve got to leave yourself open to the hidden opportunities."

- Robin Roberts

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

- Malcolm X

"Change will not come if we wait for some other people or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

- President Barack Obama

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any."

- Alice Walker

"You never know how or when you’ll have an impact, or how important your example can be to someone else."

- Denzel Washington

"There’s always something to suggest that you’ll never be who you wanted to be. Your choice is to take it or keep on moving."

- Phylicia Rashad

"The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself--the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us--that's where it's at."

- Jesse Owens

"The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression."

- W.E.B. Du Bois

"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute."

- Thurgood Marshall

"Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us."

- Susan L. Taylor

"Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us."

- Wilma Rudolph

"For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place."

- Maya Angelou

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We may encounter many defeats, but we must not be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

"If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves and allow those responsible to salve their conscience by believing that they have our acceptance and concurrence. We should, therefore, protest openly everything... that smacks of discrimination or slander."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion."

- William Lloyd Garrison

"When I dare to be powerful to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."

- Audre Lorde

"Our nation is a rainbow - red, yellow, brown, black, and white - and we're all precious in God's sight."

- Jesse Jackson

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."

- Muhammad Ali

"We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

"You really can change the world if you care enough."

- Marian Wright Edelman

"If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude."

- Colin Powell

"I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying."

- Michael Jordan

"When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything."

- Harriet Tubman

"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear."

- Rosa Parks

"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear."

- Nelson Mandela

"My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together."

- Desmond Tutu

"Truth is powerful and it prevails."

- Sojourner Truth

"The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work."

- Morrison, Toni

"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."

- Angela Y. Davis

"I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go."

- Langston Hughes

"The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on."

- Barack Obama

"Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime."

- Lewis, John

"The whole world opened to me when I learned to read."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"I did what my conscience told me to do, and you can’t fail if you do that."

- Anita Hill

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically."

- King, Martin Luther, Jr.

"Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it."

- Ali, Muhammad

"You are your best thing."

- Toni Morrison

"I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying."

- Michael Jordan

"Even in dark times, we not only dream, we do. We not only see what has been, we see what can be."

- Harris, Kamala

"Character is power."

- Booker T. Washington

"If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring in a folding chair."

- Rep. Shirley Chisholm

"I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me."

- Ali, Muhammad

"Knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom."

- Frederick Douglass

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."

- Langston Hughes

"Don’t follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail."

- Ruby Bridges

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

- Nelson Mandela

"Your life is already artful- waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art."

- Toni Morrison

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

- Nelson Mandela

"It is extremely rough to follow through with my goals, but I felt a responsibility to show the world what the African Americans are facing through this rough patch."

- Ida B. Wells

"Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise."

- Maya Angelou

"The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat."

- Cicely Tyson

"If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that."

- Michelle Obama

"We are pow­er­ful because we have sur­vived, and that is what it is all about- sur­vival and growth."

- Audre Lorde

"I don’t like to lose — at anything… Yet I’ve grown most not from victories, but setbacks. If winning is God’s reward, then losing is how he teaches us."

- Serena Williams

"Own your magic, walk in your purpose, and rock your truth."

- Beverly Bond

"The black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness."

- Marcus Garvey

"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth."

- Mohammed Ali

"I am dripping in melanin and honey. I am Black without apology."

- Upile Chisala

"I’m a black American, I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am. I have a lot of pride and dignity."

- Michael Jackson

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

- Nelson Mandela

"I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them."

- Madam C.J. Walker

"What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have."

- Oprah Winfrey

"I’ve learned in life that what you give to others is what provides the most value to your life. There I was, a mess myself, yet I still had something to offer that would have an effect on another person’s world."

- Jenifer Lewis

"You are where you are today because you stand on somebody’s shoulders. And wherever you are heading, you cannot get there by yourself. If you stand on the shoulders of others, you have a reciprocal responsibility to live your life so that others may stand on your shoulders. It’s the quid pro quo of life. We exist temporarily through what we take, but we live forever through what we give"

- Vernon Jordan

"I looked up the road I was going and back the way I come, and since I wasn’t satisfied, I decided to step off the road and cut me a new path."

- Maya Angelou

"If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance."

- bell hooks

"You can fall, but you can rise also."

- Angelique Kidjo

"You can surmount the obstacles in your path if you are determined, courageous and hard-working. Never be faint-hearted. Be resolute, but never bitter."

- Ralph Bunche

"Whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free . . . your true self comes out."

- Tina Turner

"If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair."

- Shirley Chisholm

"You can and should set your own limits and clearly articulate them. This takes courage, but it is also liberating and empowering, and often earns you new respect."

- Rosalind Brewer

"I believe a child going without an education is a crime."

- Vice President Kamala Harris

"You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream. You've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself."

- Diana Ross

"Believe in yourself and have confidence that you can compete against all odds. Have a vision of what you'd like to accomplish and be able to articulate that vision."

- Robert Johnson

"If your dream is only about you, it's too small."

- Ava DuVernay

"Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward."

- Benjamin Carson

"Our elevation must be the result of self-efforts and work of our own hands. No other human power can accomplish it. If we but determine it shall be so, it will be so."

- Martin R. Delany

"When I discover who I am, I'll be free."

- Ralph Ellison

"Get up. Stand up. Speak up. Do something."

- Tamara Burke

"It's okay to fail; it's not okay to quit."

- Christopher Paul Gardner

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"We all require and want respect, man or woman, Black or white. It's our basic human right."

- Aretha Franklin

"I find, in being Black, a thing of beauty: a joy a strength a secret cup of gladness."

- Ossie Davis

"Be a girl with a mind, a b**ch with an attitude, a lady with class."

- Rihanna

"Choosing yourself is a revolutionary act of integrity."

- Jennifer Arnise

"Strive to make something of yourself, then strive to make the most of yourself."

- Alexander Crummell

"I know that in life there will be sickness, devastation, disappointments, heartache - it's a given. What's not a given is the way you choose to get through it all. If you look hard enough, you can always find the bright side."

- Rashida Jones

"We must never forget that Black History is American History. The achievements of African Americans have contributed to our nation’s greatness."

- Yvette Clarke

"The best way to guarantee a loss is to quit."

- Morgan Freeman

"Just don’t give up what you’re trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."

- George Washington Carver

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does -- that makes you a winner right there."

- Venus Williams

"these hips have never been enslaved, they go where they want to go they do what they want to do. these hips are mighty hips. these hips are magic hips"

- Lucille Clifton

"Wanna fly, you got to give up the s — — that weighs you down."

- Toni Morrison

"You have to be able to accept failure to get better."

- LeBron James

"…he told her, ‘Don’t ever become small,’ and she said, ‘I never could.’"

- Roxane Gay

"You can always become better."

- Tiger Woods

"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not."

- Oprah Winfrey

"What you know means something. What you do means something. Your name means something."

- Audria Richmond

"For I am my mother’s daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"I need to see my own beauty and to continue to be reminded that I am enough, that I am worthy of love without effort, that I am beautiful."

- Ross, Tracee Ellis

"We have always been wonderful. I see us reflected in the world’s most heavenly things. Black is king."

- Knowles, Beyoncé

"I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history."

- Morgan Freeman

"I’m hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter."

- Jay-Z

"We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history."

- Woodson, Carter

"Never let someone tell you you're too small or too slow."

- Chris Paul

"Success is the sweetest revenge."

- Vanessa Williams

"Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing."

- Quincy Jones

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none."

- Miles Davis

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best."

- Duke Ellington

"Two things people throughout history have had in common are hatred and humour. I am proud that I have been able to use humour to lessen people's hatred."

- Richard Pryor

"Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

"The most marvelous, unbelievable thing about Black people in America is that they exist. Every imaginable monstrosity that evil can conjure has been inflicted on this population, yet they have not been extinguished."

"Black people always found a way in the most miserable circumstances. If we didn't, we'd have been exterminated by the white man long ago."

"When I discover who I am, I’ll be free."

"Most people run from what they’re afraid of. I run toward it. That doesn’t mean I think I’m bulletproof (I’ve learned the hard way that I’m not) or that I’m unaware of danger. I experience fear as much as the next man. But one of the greatest mistakes people can make is becoming comfortable with their fears."

"To soar toward what's possible, you must leave behind what's comfortable."

"No matter how often you fall from grace, what matters most is how many times you get up."

"You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were."

"I am stronger than I am broken."

"When the world tells you to shrink, expand."

"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it."

"I am a strong black woman that deserve all the good things coming my way."

"Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by color."

"I am changing the things I cannot accept."

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