African American Love Quotes:

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

- Zora Neale Hurston

topic: Love, Inspirational, Life, Souls In Love, I Love You Like

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

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.67, Beacon Press

topic: Inspirational, Life, Inspiring, Social Equality, Love And Hate

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.

topic: Love, Faith, Peace, Belive, Peace Love

A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

- Malcolm X

topic: Wisdom, Peace, War, Stand For Something, Fall Of Man

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.

- Maya Angelou

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Change, Make People Feel Better, Live For Yourself

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.

- George Washington Carver

topic: Inspirational, Funny, Life, Life Philosophy, Kind People

You really can change the world if you care enough.

- Marian Wright Edelman

topic: Inspirational, Change, Black, One Person Can Make A Difference, If You Care

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

topic: Inspirational, Life, Motivational, Impossible Dream, Inspirational Dream

Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet

- Sarah Louise Delany

source: Sarah Louise Delany, Annie Elizabeth Delany, Amy Hill Hearth (1993). “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years”, p.214, Kodansha America

topic: Inspirational, Happiness, Inspiring, Life Is Sweet, African American History

Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations. If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won't exist because you'll have already shut it out...You can hear other people's wisdom, but you've got to re-evaluate the world for yourself.

- Mae Jemison

topic: Attitude, People, Imagination, Business Growth, African American History

The times may have changed, but the people are still the same. We're still looking for love, and that will always be our struggle as human beings.

- Halle Berry

topic: Love, Inspiring, Happiness, African American Love

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.

- Michael Jordan

source: "I Can't Accept Not Trying : Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence". Book by Michael Jordan (p. 129), 1994.

topic: Motivational, Change, Basketball, Favorite Sports, Young Entrepreneurs

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

- Coretta Scott King

source: "Understanding Cultural Diversity in Today's Complex World". Book by Leo Parvis, p. 54, 2010.

topic: Inspirational, Inspiring, Forgiveness, Importunate, Love And Hate

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

- Booker T. Washington

source: Booker T. Washington (1901). “An Autobiography: The Story of My Life and Work, the Original Brought Up-to-date with Over Half a Hundred Full Page Photo and Halftone Engravings and Drawings by Frank Beard”

topic: Inspirational, Life, Success, Best Success, Inspirational History

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

source: June Jordan, “Poem For South African Women”

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Change, Times Have Changed, Inspirational Presidential

I learned to put my trust in God and to see Him as my strength. Long ago I set my mind to be a free person and not to give in to fear. I always felt that it was my right to defend myself if I could. I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

- Rosa Parks

topic: Long Ago, Years, Knowing, Empowering Women, I Am Strong

You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.

- Marian Wright Edelman

topic: Success, Winning, History, Persistence Inspirational, African American Inspirational

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.

- Lou Holtz

topic: Inspirational, Way, Break, Inspirational Football, My Attitude

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

topic: Inspirational, Dream, Slave, Inspirational History, Daybreak

Where there is no vision, there is no hope.

- George Washington Carver

topic: Inspirational, Hope, Black, Inspiring Leader, Mission And Vision

You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.

- Eldridge Cleaver

source: Speech to San Francisco Barristers' Club, San Francisco, Cal., Sept. 1968.

topic: Life, Idaho, Politics, African American History, African American Inspirational

One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

- W. E. B. Du Bois

topic: Dark, Two, Soul, Two Souls, African American Love

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate...

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Hate, Social Equality, Love And Hate, Make Peace Not War, Social Programs

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

- Carol Moseley Braun

topic: Freedom, Challenges, Faces, Defining Myself, Difficult Challenges

I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try.

- Nikki Giovanni

topic: Inspirational, Life, Inspiring, Imagine That, Fear Of Success

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

- Frederick Douglass

topic: Men, Black History, Slave, African American History, African American History Month

We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world, void of national bias, race, hate, and religious prejudice. There should be no indulgence in undue eulogy of the Negro. The case of the Negro is well taken care of when it is shown how he has far influenced the development of civilization.

- Carter G. Woodson

source: Carter G. Woodson (2008). “Negro Makers of History”, p.20, Wildside Press LLC

topic: Religious, Hate, Taken, Inspirational History, Race In America

If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander.

- Mary McLeod Bethune

topic: Responsibility, Patriotism, Faces, Discrimination And Racism, Racism In America

I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life.

- Oprah Winfrey

topic: Inspirational, Life, Motivational, Inspirational History, Striving For Excellence

I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in 'We, the people.'

- Barbara Jordan

topic: Mistake, Years, People, Court Decision, African American History

I know why the caged bird sings.

- Maya Angelou

source: Title of book (1969), taken from the last line of "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar in Lyrics of Hearthside (1899). Cf. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1979) 567:10

topic: Inspirational, Children, Book, Carols, Best Poem

I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

- Zora Neale Hurston

source: World Tomorrow "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928)

topic: Knives, Oysters, World, Lurking, African Women

Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.

- Arthur Ashe

topic: Racism, Excuse, Ethnic Identity, African American History, African American History Month

I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world—I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

- Zora Neale Hurston

source: World Tomorrow "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928)

topic: Strong, Hurt, Dirty, All Black, Colored Eyes

Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionarys life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.

- Angela Davis

topic: Struggle, Revolution, Serious, Serious Things, African American Love

I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and I felt like I was in heaven.

- Harriet Tubman

source: "Harriet, The Moses of Her People". Book by Sarah H. Bradford, 1886.

topic: Freedom, Hands, Heaven, African American History, African American History Month

Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.

- Barbara Jordan

topic: Inspirational, Freedom, Memorable, Equality For All, Equality Of People

I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.116, Beacon Press

topic: Peace, Kings, Unconditional Love, Kings Speech, Daybreak