Inspiring African American Quotes to Ignite Your Spirit

"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."

- Booker T. Washington

"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."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I am where I am because of the bridges that I crossed. Sojourner Truth was a bridge. Harriet Tubman was a bridge. Ida B. Wells was a bridge. Madame C. J. Walker was a bridge."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Aretha Franklin

"Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America."

- John Lewis

"Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way."

- Booker T. Washington

"If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down."

- Toni Morrison

"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences."

- Audre Lorde

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

- Shirley Chisholm

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"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

"Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part."

- John Lewis

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

- Yvette Clarke

"Won’t it be wonderful when Black history and Native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history."

- Maya Angelou

"Black history isn’t a separate history. This is all of our history, this is American history, and we need to understand that."

- Karyn Parsons

"The thing about Black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up."

- Henry Louis Gates

"If we do not know how to meaningfully talk about racism, our actions will move in misleading directions."

- Angela Davis

"The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being."

- Toni Morrison

"Racism separates, but it never liberates. Hatred generates fear, and fear once given a foothold binds, consumes, and imprisons. Nothing is gained from prejudice. No one benefits from racism."

- Thurgood Marshall

"In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist."

- Angela Davis

"The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward."

- Ijeoma Oluo

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

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Even if it makes others uncomfortable, I will love who I am."

- Janelle Monáe

"Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face."

- Carol Moseley Braun

"You’ve got to learn to leave the table when love’s no longer being served."

- Nina Simone

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

- Susan L. Taylor

"Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it."

- James Baldwin

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

- Angela Davis

"No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow."

- Alice Walker

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

- Barbara Jordan

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

- Maya Angelou

"Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."

- Michael Jordan

"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

"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

"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

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

- Harriet Tubman

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

- Tamara Burke

"Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them."

- Madam C.J. Walker

"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.

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

- Shirley Chisholm

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

- Muhammad Ali

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

- Malcolm X

"I refused to take no for an answer."

- Bessie Coleman

"Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise."

- Kobe Bryant

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does."

- Serena Williams

"Don't follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail. When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength, and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you!"

- Ruby Bridges

"If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, then make that change."

- Michael Jackson

"Nothing will work unless you do."

- Maya Angelou

"As black women, we’re always given these seemingly devastating experiences—experiences that could absolutely break us. But what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly. What we do as black women is take the worst situations and create from that point."

- Viola Davis

"I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me."

- Harriet Tubman

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

- Malcolm X

"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

"It’s important to remember that our job is to love… to truly love, and to act in love towards ourselves and others, every single day."

- Alicia Keys

"We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society."

- Angela Davis

"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

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

- Maya Angelou

"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

"History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are but, more importantly, what they must be."

- John Henrik Clarke

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

- Alice Walker

"Reach for the stars, we may not quite get there but we will get somewhere."

- James Weldon Johnson

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

- Morgan Freeman

"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

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

- Dr. Mae Jemison

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

- James Baldwin

"You are your best thing."

- Toni Morrison

"Freedom is never given; it is won."

- A. Philip Randolph

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Rosa Parks

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

- Thurgood Marshall

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else."

- Booker T. Washington

"I work really hard to try to see the beauty in everything and everyone. It’s hard sometimes, and I don’t think I succeed all the time, but I try to approach things with love rather than judgment."

- Lupita Nyong'o

"Don’t wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you’ve got to make yourself."

- Alice Walker

"I don’t have to prove anything to anyone, I only have to follow my heart and concentrate on what I want to say to the world. I run my world."

- Beyoncé

"My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style."

- Maya Angelou

"Success is not about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives."

- Michelle Obama

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

- Langston Hughes

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

- Frederick Douglass

"Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."

- John Lewis

"Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person's God-given potential."

- Condoleezza Rice

"Have a vision. Be demanding."

- Colin Powell

"Dreams are lovely but they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change."

- Shonda Rhimes

"If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go."

- James Baldwin

"There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made."

- Michelle Obama

"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."

- Ida B. Wells

"Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion, you’re wasting your life."

- Jackie Robinson

"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, that the texture of my hair and that the shape of my curves, the size of my lips, the color of my skin, and the feelings that I have are all worthy and okay."

- Tracee Ellis Ross

"The soul that is within me no man can degrade."

- Frederick Douglass

"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."

- Arthur Ashe

"The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated."

- James Baldwin

"Always keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling bad or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging."

- Hank Aaron

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

- Arthur Ashe

"Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"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

"There is no boy, at this age, cute enough or interesting enough to stop you from getting an education, If I had worried about who liked me and who thought I was cute when I was your age, I wouldn’t be married to the President of the United States."

- Michelle Obama

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

- Alexander Crummell

"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

"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

"These children and their parents know that getting an education is not only their right, but a passport to a better future - for the children and for the country."

- Harry Belafonte

"All kids need is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them."

- Magic Johnson

"We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."

- Jesse Owens

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

- Jackie Robinson

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

- Ralph Ellison

"If there is a book that you want to read, but hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it."

- Toni Morrison

"You can kill a man but you can't kill an idea."

- Medgar Evers

"You have to be prepared to die before you can be prepared to live."

- Fred Shuttlesworth

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

- Morgan Freeman

"To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed."

- Sidney Poitier

"Never limit yourself because of other’s limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination."

- Mae Jemison

"I have had one goal in my life, that of playing some role in making life a little easier for the persons who come after me."

- Percy Lavon Julian

"We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds."

- Jesse Jackson

"Don't let people disrespect you. My mom says don't open the door to the devil. Surround yourself with positive people."

- Cuba Gooding Jr.

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

- Colin Powell

"Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. 'Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it's done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.'"

- Quincy Jones

"Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you."

- Viola Davis

"Never dull your shine for somebody else."

- Tyra Banks

"You can fool people. You can fool anybody any time of the day, but you can't fool yourself. At night, when you go home, you've got to be straight up with you."

- Whitney Houston

"If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow."

- Beyoncé

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

- Benjamin Carson

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

- LeBron James

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

- Chris Paul

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

- Christopher Paul Gardner

"Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end."

- Michelle Obama

"If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose."

- Bishop T.D. Jakes

"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 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

"Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences."

- Marcus Garvey

"I chased my dreams. In the end, find what gets you excited and chase it."

- Guion Bluford

"Man dreams that he is more than a leaf on a tree."

- Countee Cullen

"The only difference between a hero and the villain is that the villain chooses to use that power in a way that is selfish and hurts other people."

- Chadwick Boseman

"We all have ability. The difference is how we use it."

- Stevie Wonder

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."

- Jimi Hendrix

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

- Duke Ellington

"I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great."

- Ray Charles

"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

"Bottom line: if you show a genuine interest in learning about how others became successful, you can open up a world of opportunities."

- Armstrong Williams

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

- W.E.B. Du Bois

"I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that I’m going to be positive and not wake up feeling desperate."

- Billie Holiday

"Success is the sweetest revenge."

- Vanessa Williams

"Age is no barrier. It's a limitation you put on your mind."

- Jackie Joyner-Kersee

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."

- Confucius

"Do not bring people in your life who weigh you down. And trust your instincts — good relationships feel good. They feel right. They don’t hurt."

- Oprah Winfrey

"The only way to deal with this life meaningfully is to find one’s passion, and put everything into it."

- Chadwick Boseman

"Within our dreams and aspirations, we find our opportunities."

- Sugar Ray Leonard

"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength."

- Maya Angelou

"In order to be the best version of yourself, you have to dedicate time, effort, and support to other people who need it."

- Laurence Fishburne

"Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated."

- Coretta Scott King

"You can always become better."

- Tiger Woods

"Character is power."

- Booker T. Washington

"You learn more in failure than you ever do in success."

- Jay-Z

"Racism is man’s gravest threat to man—the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason."

- Abraham Joshua Heschel

"The knowledge I have now is not the knowledge I had then."

- Stokely Carmichael

"There are two rules in life: Number 1, never quit! Number 2, never forget rule number one."

- Duke Ellington

"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

"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

"Like what you do, and then you will do your best."

- Katherine Johnson

"You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That's a part of it."

- Denzel Washington

"Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others."

- Rosa Parks

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

- Ava DuVernay

"A man without knowledge of himself and his heritage is like a tree without roots."

- Dick Gregory

"The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed."

- Gordon Sparks

"When you stop having dreams and ideals - well, you might as well stop altogether."

- Marian Anderson

"If you look at how long the Earth has been here, we're living in the blink of an eye. So, whatever it is you want to do, you go out and do it."

- Jamie Foxx

"Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home."

- Gwendolyn Brooks

"The easy thing to do is to keep doing what’s always been done, but challenging the status quo can show you things you didn’t know were possible."

- Alicia Boler Davis

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

- George Washington Carver

"I only debate my equals. All others, I teach."

- John Henrik Clarke

"We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark."

- Whoopi Goldberg

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none."

- Miles Davis

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

- Zora Neale Hurston

"To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time."

- James Baldwin

"Everything is habit-forming, so make sure what you do is what you want to be doing."

- Wilt Chamberlain

"I don't want the bottom, so I have to sacrifice the top."

- Chuck Berry

"Intemperance and intolerance serve no one and hatred guarantees failure."

- Edward Brooke

"In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress."

- Booker T. Washington

"The strength of a nation lies in the homes of its people."

- Marian Wright Edelman

"Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot."

- Clarence Thomas

"I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is."

- Jean-Michel Basquiat

"It's a long old road, but I know I'm gonna find the end."

- Bessie Smith

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

- Ralph Ellison

"I don’t work hard because I don’t want anyone to feel bad about what they can’t do. I work hard because I can’t do it without God."

- Mary J. Blige

"Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help."

- Alex Haley

"Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties."

- Benjamin Banneker

"Never be afraid to sit awhile and think."

- Lorraine Hansberry

"Let us keep the dance of rain our fathers kept and tread our dreams beneath the jungle sky."

- Arna Bontemps

"Being champion is all well and good, but you can't eat a crown."

- Althea Gibson

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

- Michelle Obama

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit."

- Aristotle

"The advice I would give to someone is to not take anyone's advice."

- Eddie Murphy

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

"In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn."

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

"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 the world tells you to shrink, expand."

"I am stronger than I am broken."

"Never let anyone—any person or any force—dampen, dim or diminish your light."

"I’m grateful for all the breaks and honors and opportunities I’ve had, but I always believe I won’t have it made until the humblest black kid in the most remote backwoods of America has it made."

"Yes, representation matters, but there is more to transformation than looking into a book the way you would look into a mirror."

"Turning a blind eye to our history has not saved us from its consequences."

"Race is the child of racism, not the father."

"I feel that if we don't take seriously the ways in which racism is embedded in structures of institutions, if we assume that there must be an identifiable racist who is the perpetrator, then we won't ever succeed in eradicating racism."

"The discussion of representation is one that has been repeated over and over again, and the solution has always been that it’s up to us to support, promote, and create the images that we want to see."