Michael Dyson Quotes

Realizing your potential as a leader is your responsibility.

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you. Never excuse yourself.

In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity, or you can pick yourself up and say, 'Listen, I have to be responsible for myself.'

I take responsibility for myself and what I do now.

You can never control other people. You can only control yourself. I have definitely learned that.

I'd been very partial to Malcolm X, particularly his self-help teachings.

It is every one's sacred duty to keep himself in a condition to do the biggest thing possible to him.

As a result of America's efforts to realize the ideals of equality and freedom, blacks in America are now the freest and richest black people anywhere on the face of the earth including all of the nations that are ruled by blacks.

We must wake ourselves up! Or somebody else will take our place, and bear our cross, and thereby rob us of our crown.

All I demand for the black man is, that the white people shall take their heels off his neck, and let him have a chance to rise by his own efforts.

We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.

If the history of the Day of Atonement has anything to say to us now it is: never relieve individuals of moral responsibility. The more we have, the more we grow.

It was a question of helping a man prepare in the way that suits him best. The theory is if you give a man responsibility for his own actions, then it is up to him to accept that responsibility.

I think Mr. Cosby has always been very much an activist and a big proponent of African-American pride. That's how 'The Cosby Show' came about. I think in his older years, he has gotten a lot more direct and vocal about it. But I think he only wants the best for all of us.

The dream was not to put one black family in the White House, the dream was to make everything equal in everybody's house.

I'm saying that you can create success for yourself but also understand that you have a responsibility to others.

I think it's your duty to overcome what you inherit in life.

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.

Unless we bring in blacks as full partners, my country won’t be fit for my grandchildren.

Much depends upon us for the help of our color—more than many are aware. If we are lazy and idle, the enemies of freedom plead it as a cause why we ought not to be free … by such conduct we strengthen the hands of oppression and keep many in bondage …. I entreat you to consider the obligations we lie under ….

Where is the black man's Government? Where is his King and his Kingdom? Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs? I could not find them, and then I declared, "I will help to make them.

During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and ‘I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for which I am prepared to die for.

Today, Negroes play on every big league club and in every minor league. With millions of other Negroes in other walks of life, we are willing to stand up and be counted for what we believe in. In baseball or out, we are no longer willing to wait until Judgment Day for equality - we want it here on earth as well as in Heaven.

I identify... with the ideas that Malcolm X stood for.

We think of the Marine Corps as a military outfit, and of course it is, but for me, the U.S. Marine Corps was a four-year crash course in character education. It taught me how to make a bed, how to do laundry, how to wake up early, how to manage my finances. These are things my community didn't teach me.