Malcolm X Quotes

One thing that's great about firefighters: If they don't have the equipment they desperately need, they don't have the help, they don't care. They'll do it on their own.

I always knew that I would have to make it on my own somehow.

He was always sort of a scrappy little kid wasn't he? A bit of a fighter?

My grandmother raised five children during the Depression by herself. At 50, she threw her sewing machine into the back of a pickup truck and drove from North Dakota to California. She was a real survivor, so that's my stock. That's how I want my kids to be too.

My childhood was bittersweet in many ways. We moved around a lot. By the time I was 10, I had travelled thousands of miles, often on my own. My parents were like my friends, so it felt like I didn't really have parents at all. But in a crazy way that was very liberating. It forced me to be independent, maybe a leader, and certainly a survivor.

By the age of 9 or 10, I knew that I had to cut my own cloth and make my own way.

Never let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries. Continue steadfastly on one's way.

I've always been a workhorse, and I've been supporting myself since I was 15.

I'm blessed with a great memory. To be honest, a lot of times, being on my own at such a young age, my memories were all I had. I didn't have many pictures.

After school, I'd wait for someone to pick me up and no one would, so I'd be like, 'I guess I'll walk home.' I had to be a hustler, because nobody did anything for me.

We can and we will solve our problems for ourselves. We know how. We can, and we will.

I am a very driven and hardworking person, and I am independent, and I feel that I have really good instincts.

It's a tough world out there, and women can't afford to be weenies.

It was lonely on the hill, and cold. And all you could do was keep going. You could scream, cry, and stamp your feet, but apart from making you feel warmer, it wouldn’t do any good. You could say it was unfair, and that was true, but the universe didn’t care because it didn’t know what “fair” meant. That was the big problem about being a witch. It was up to you. It was always up to you.

You're always first when no one's on your side.

The record shows, I took the blows . And did it my way.

The longer we live the more we must endure the elementary existence of men and women; and every brave heart must treat society asa child, and never allow it to dictate.

Thy spirit, Independence, let me share! Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.

To stand alone against all adversity is the most sacred moment of existence.

I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be self-sufficient. There's nothing especially brave about wandering dark streets with no flashlight, but we are not supposed to need help, even from light. We are supposed to be capable of anything. I like that. Because their might come a day when there is no flashlight, there is no gun, there is no guiding hand. And I want to be ready.

She knows where she's going, and what she has to do. She could, after all, find her way to Route 95 South blindfolded. She could do it in the dark, in fair weather or foul; she can do it even when it seems she will run out of gas. It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.

Peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star.

I have realized that part of being Dauntless is being willing to make things more difficult for yourself in order to be self-sufficient.

It is clear that we must trust what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us; it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.