These African American quotes will inspire you. African Americans are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging African American quotes, African American sayings, and African American proverbs.
Best African American Quotes
- “It’s not what you achieve in life, but who you become as a person due to those achievements.” ~ Curtis Martin
- “Do not worry about the past or the future. This moment needs your attention, for this is where your life exists.” ~ Leon Brown
- “It’s easy to do anything in victory. It’s in defeat that a man reveals himself.” ~ Floyd Patterson
-
“Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.” ~ Maya Angelou
- “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” ~ Audre Lorde
- “In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.” ~ Michael Jackson
- “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” ~ James A. Baldwin , African American quotes about change
-
“Step through new doors. The majority of the time there’s something fantastic on the other side.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
- “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” ~ Jackie Robinson
- “It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.” ~ Whitney M. Young
- “Your life is a product of your thoughts, what you think about all day becomes the basis of your life.” ~ Leon Brown , African American quotes about life
-
“Mistakes are the stepping stones to wisdom, we learn from trial & error, we become wise by understanding problems.” ~ Leon Brown
- “Listen to yourself, not the noise of the world. Only you know what is right for you.” ~ Leon Brown
- “Always focus on your effort, instead of the results of that effort.” ~ Russell Simmons
- “Use me, God. Show me how to take who I am, who I want to be, and what I can do, and use it for a purpose greater than myself.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
-
“He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” ~ Muhammad Ali
- “One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.” ~ Michelle Obama
- “Deal with yourself as an individual, worthy of respect, and make everyone else deal with you the same way.” ~ Nikki Giovanni
- “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.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston
-
“To succeed, you need to find something to hold on to, something to motivate you, something to inspire you.” ~ Tony Dorsett
- “The truth is… everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else.” ~ Countee Cullen
- “Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.” ~ Satchel Paige
- “I’m a lover, not a fighter.” ~ Michael Jackson
-
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.” ~ Rosa Parks
- “The time is always right to do what is right.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.” ~ Jackie Robinson
-
“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” ~ Malcolm X
- “Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!” ~ Maya Angelou
- “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
- “Hate is too great a burden to bear.” ~ Coretta Scott King
-
“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.” ~ Angela Davis
- “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.” ~ Muhammad Ali
- “It isn’t where you came from, it’s where you’re going that counts.” ~ Ella Fitzgerald
- “You will only find the happiness you seek when you drop your negative attitude towards life, embrace life and be happy.” ~ Leon Brown
-
“I don’t believe in failure. It is not failure if you enjoyed the process.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
- “But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you’ve got to compromise. You’ve got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.” ~ Colin Powell
- “I didn’t have anybody, really, no foundation in life, so I had to make my own way. Always, from the start. I had to go out in the world and become strong, to discover my mission in life.” ~ Tina Turner
- “People have been killing because of racial differences since the time of Adam and Eve, but in this country racism has been primarily aimed at African Americans.” ~ Bob Cousy
-
“Remember who you are and whose you are.” ~ Thea Bowman
- “I will never again play anything that does not have social significance. We American jazz musicians of African descent have proved beyond all doubt that we are master musicians of our instruments. Now what we have to do is employ our skill to tell the dramatic story of our people and what we’ve been through.” ~ Max Roach
- “The African-American community still needs to come together as one and stand up for rights of the people and of what’s happening in their culture, their community.” ~ Ziggy Marley
- “Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike.” ~ Maya Angelou
-
“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” ~ Michael Jordan
- “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. , African American quotes about creativity
- “I dream of a world where the truth is what shapes people’s politics, rather than politics shaping what people think is true.” ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson
- “No matter what we’ve done or where we’ve been, every single one of us can change.” ~ Russell Simmons
-
“We are the ones we have been waiting for” ~ Alice Walker
- “Don’t feel entitled to anything you didn’t sweat and struggle for.” ~ Marian Wright Edelman
- “Let the brain go to work, let it meet the heart and you will be able to forgive.” ~ Maya Angelou
- “What they call you is one thing. What you answer to is something else.” ~ Lucille Clifton
-
“A crown, if it hurts us, is not worth wearing.” ~ Pearl Bailey
- “Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.” ~ Coretta Scott King
- “Be the buffalo. Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee nation, once told me how the cow runs away from the storm while the buffalo charges directly toward it—and gets through it quicker. Whenever I’m confronted with a tough challenge, I do not prolong the torment. I become the buffalo.” ~ Donna Brazile
- “Greatness is a lot of small things done well. Day after day, workout after workout, obedience after obedience, day after day.” ~ Ray Lewis
-
“Art hurts. Art urges voyages – and it is easier to stay at home.” ~ Gwendolyn Brooks
- “No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.” ~ George Washington Carver
- “A little learning, indeed, maybe a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.” ~ Frederick Douglass
- “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” ~ Satchel Paige
-
“In every crisis, there is a message.” ~ Susan L. Taylor
- “The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible” ~ Toni Cade Bambara
- “Being black, I’m involved in the reparations movement. It’s focused toward the African-American audience. We could begin to heal.” ~ Cassandra Wilson
-
“To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.” ~ Stephen Ambrose
- “Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.” ~ Carol Moseley Braun
- “The past is a ghost, the future a dream, and all we ever have is now.” ~ Bill Cosby
African Americans constitute the second-largest racial group in the US, after White Americans, and the third-largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans.
