Daisy Bates

"The man who never makes a mistake always takes orders from one who does. No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies."

Mary McLeod Bethune

"Cease to be a drudge, seek to be an artist."

Rosalind Cash

"I'm not good at playing stereotypes. I don't ingratiate myself to the powers-that-be as some nice, Negro, colored, abiding person. You can't depend on me to be that Negro that you have come to know and love, that you're used to."

Elizabeth Catlett

"I try to tell young artists, black artists, that there's a great need for their work. Some are only interested in doing what they want to do, not what people need."

" I think that there are other reasons for creating art, to contribute something new, and that's what I've been trying to do."

Rita Dove

"All of us have moments in our childhood where we come alive for the first time. And we go back to those moments and think, This is when I became myself."

"One definition of eternity is that we are not alone on this planet, that there are those who've gone before and those who will come, and that there is a community of spirits."

Maion Wright Edelman

"Service is the rent we pay to be living. It is the very purpose of life and not something you do in your spare time."

"If we don't stand up for children, then we don't stand for much."

"Being considerate of others will take you and your children further in life than any college or professional degree."

Ella Fitzgerald

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

Aretha Franklin

"Trying to grow up is hurting, you know. You make mistakes. You try to learn from them, and when you don't, it hurts even more."

Nikki Giovanni

"Art is not for the cultivated taste. It is to cultivate taste."

"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."

"Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts."

"Some say we are responsible for those we love. Others know we are responsible for those who love us."

“And he said: you pretty full of yourself ain't chu. So she replied: show me someone not full of Herself and I'll show you a hungry person.”

“There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don't expect you to save the world I do think it's not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary and remove from your live those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.”

Fannie Lou Hamer

"Whether you have a Ph.D., or no D, we're in this bag together. And whether you're from Morehouse or Nohouse, we're still in this bag together. Not to fight to try to liberate ourselves from the men -- this is another trick to get us fighting among ourselves -- but to work together with the black man, then we will have a better chance to just act as human beings, and to be treated as human beings in our sick society."

"On northern racism, speaking in New York: The man'll shoot you in the face in Mississippi, and you turn around he'll shoot you in the back here."

Lorraine Hansberry

"Take away the violence and who will hear the men of peace?"

"Seems like God don't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams -- but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile."

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

"Every mother should endeavor to be a true artist. I do not mean by this that every woman should be a painter, sculptor, musician, poet, or writer, but the artist who will write on the table of childish innocence thoughts she will not blush to see read in the light of eternity and printed amid the archives of heaven, that the young may learn to wear them as amulets around their hearts and throw them as bulwarks around their lives, and that in the hour of temptation and trial the voices from home may linger around their paths as angles of guidance, around their steps, and be incentives to deeds of high and holy worth."

"The home may be a humble spot, where there are no velvet carpets to hush your tread, no magnificence to surround your way, nor costly creations of painter's art or sculptor's skill to please your conceptions or gratify your tastes; but what are the costliest gifts of fortune when placed in the balance with the confiding love of dear children or the devotion of a noble and manly husband whose heart can safely trust in his wife?"

"The moment the crown of motherhood falls on the brow of a young wife, God gives her a new interest in the welfare of the home and the good of society."

Billie Holiday

"I'm always making a comeback but nobody ever tells me where I've been."

"Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough."

"You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave."

"Sometimes it's worse to win a fight than to lose."

Lena Horne

"Always be smarter than the people who hire you."

"Don't be afraid to feel as angry or as loving as you can, because when you feel nothing, it's just death."

Zora Neal Hurston

"People can be slave-ships in shoes."

"Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me."

"The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell."

Mahalia Jackson

"God can make you anything you want to be, but you have to put everything in his hands."

Judith Jamison

"We can go on talking about racism and who treated whom badly, but what are you going to do about it? Are you going to wallow in that or are you going to create your own agenda?"

Coretta Scott King

"Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul."

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

Wangari Maathai

"African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are -- to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence."

"It's the little things citizens do. That's what will make the difference. My little thing is planting trees."

Miriam Makeba

"Age is…wisdom, if one has lived one's life properly."

"Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least, get out of the way so you won't get run over."

Queen Makeda

"Wisdom is far better than the treasure of silver & gold. It is sweeter than honey & finer than wine, brighter than the sun & to be loved more than precious stones. What is stored within is greater than oil, & it satisfies ones cravings more than meat. It is joy to the heart, light to the eye, speed to the foot, & shield to the breast."

Toni Morrison

"If there is a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it."

"If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression."

"All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was."

Rosa Parks

"Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again."

"Each person must live their life as a model for others."

Phylicia Rashad

"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."

"Meditation is the power that leads you to your own truth. Everybody needs to be free. The main thing meditation frees you from is the idea of "do-ership," the thinking that "I am doing this."

Beah Richards

"Heaven and earth! How is it that bodies join but never meet?"

"Race, what is that? Race is a competition, somebody winning and somebody losing. . . .Blood doesn't run in races! Come on!"

Diana Ross

"I really, deeply believe that dreams do come true. Often, they might not come when you want them. They come in their own time."

"Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then."

Betty Shabazz

"We can say 'Peace on Earth,' we can sing about it, preach about it or pray about it, but if we have not internalized the mythology to make it happen inside us, then it will not be."

Assata Shakur

"Although we live in one of the richest, most technologically advanced countries in the world, our reality is similar to an undeveloped Third World country. We are a people who are truly seeking freedom and harmony.” Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that FEW rebels can EVER afford."

Nina Simone

"Desegregation is a joke."

"I'm a real rebel with a cause."

Harriet Tubman

"It is the mind that makes the body."

"And ain't I a woman?"

"If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right side up again."

Tina Turner

"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."

"If I could have convinced more slaves that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."

"Never wound a snake; kill it."

Cicely Tyson

"For me the goddess is the female of God, She is powerful if different."

"You take your problems to a god, but what you really need is for the god to take you to the inside of you."

"What's love got to do with it? A lot!"

Iyanla Vanzant

"Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch-what make you go beyond the norm."

"I think when you begin to think of yourself as having achieved something, then there's nothing left for you to work towards. I want to believe that there is a mountain so high that I will spend my entire life striving to reach the top of it."

Alice Walker

"Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change."

"Challenges come so we can grow and be prepared for things we are not equipped to handle now. When we face our challenges with faith, prepared to learn, willing to make changes, and if necessary, to let go, we are demanding our power be turned on."

Ida B. Wells

"Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me."

"How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names."

"I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it."

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

"Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me."

Oprah Winfrey

"The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched."

"Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure."

"Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment."

"Follow your instincts. That's where true wisdom manifests itself."

"luck is preparation meeting opportunity."

"Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down."

"So go ahead. Fall down. The world looks different from the ground."