Marcus Garvey quotes showcase the thoughts of a man who loved mankind and fought for the rights of his people. He was someone who trusted in God and spoke of his mother’s faith in her redeemer. He went on before men like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X who followed in his footsteps.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey Jr. ONH was a Jamaican entrepreneur, orator, political activist, publisher and journalist. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League. Another famous activist was Nelson Mandela who eventually became the President of South Africa. Garvey was known for declaring himself the Provisional President of Africa. Below are a number of his quotes.
Quote #1 “The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself but the ends you serve that are for all, in common, will take you into eternity.” |
Quote #2 “If you haven't confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.” |
Quote #3 “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” |
Quote #4 “Intelligence rules the world, ignorance carries the burden...” |
Quote #5 “The pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is mightier than them both put together.” |
Quote #6 “God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.” |
Quote #7 “I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together.” |
Quote #8 “Liberate the minds of men and ultimately you will liberate the bodies of men.” |
Quote #9 “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery, for though others may free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is our only ruler; sovereign.” |
Quote #10 “great principles, great ideals know no nationality.” |
Quote #11 “to be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top.” |
Quote #12 “You at this time can only be destroyed by yourselves, from within and not from without. You have reached the point where the victory is to be won from within and can only be lost from within.” |
Quote #13 “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” |
Quote #14 “Having had the wrong education as a start in his racial career, the Negro has become his own greatest enemy. Most of the trouble I have had in advancing the cause of the race has come from Negroes. Booker Washington aptly described the race in one of his lectures by stating that we were like crabs in a barrel, that none would allow the other to climb over, but on any such attempt all would continue to pull back into the barrel the one crab that would make the effort to climb out. Yet, those of us with vision cannot desert the race, leaving it to suffer and die.” |
Quote #15 “we were like crabs in a barrel, that none would allow the other to climb over, but on any such attempt all would continue to pull back into the barrel the one crab that would make the effort to climb out.” |
Quote #16 “If I die in Atlanta my work shall then only begin, but I shall live, in the physical or spiritual to see the day of Africa’s glory.” |
Quote #17
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Quote #18 “Some of us seem to accept the fatalist position, the fatalist attitude, that God accorded to us a certain position and condition, and therefore there is no need trying to be otherwise. The moment you accept such an attitude, the moment you accept such an opinion, the moment you harbor such an idea, you hurl an insult at the great God who created you, because you question Him for His love, you question Him for His mercy.” |
Quote #19 “Do not remove the kinks from your hair - remove them from your brain.” |
Quote #20 “With confidence, you have won before you have started.” |
Quote #21 “To have built up a new organization, which was not purely political, among Negroes in America was a wonderful feat, for the Negro politician does not allow any other kind of organization within his race to thrive.” |
Quote #22 “Prohibition is to abstain from intoxicating liquor, as it makes us morbid and sometimes drunk. But we get drunk every day, nevertheless, not so much by the strength of what we sip from the cup, but that which we eat, the water we drink, and the air we inhale, which at fermentation conspire at eventide to make us so drunk and tired that we lose control of ourselves and fall asleep. Everybody is a drunkard, and if we were to enforce real prohibition we should all be dead.” |
Quote #23 “There is no strength but that which is destructive, because man has lost his virtues, and only respects force, which he himself cannot counteract.” |
Quote #24 “The Negro will have to build his own industry, art, sciences, literature, and culture before the world will stop to consider him.” |
Quote #25 “We are going to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery because whilst others might free the body, none but ourselves can free the mind. Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind.” |
Quote #26
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Quote #27 “whipped. It annoys me to be defeated; hence to me, to be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top.” |
Quote #28 “Let no voice but your own speak to you from the depths. Let no influence but your own raise you in time of peace and time of war. Hear all, but attend only that which concerns you.” |
Quote #29 “Every student of political science, every student of political economy, every student of economics knows that the race can only be saved through a solid industrial foundation; that the race can only be saved through political independence. Take away industry from a race, take away political freedom from a race and you have a slave race.” |
Quote #30 “be defeated; hence to me, to be once defeated is to find cause for an everlasting struggle to reach the top.” |
Quote #31 “Somebody said (but if it were not said, then I say it now), that " the laws of our civilization have but one interpretation for the poor and ignorant and for those of wealth and power, there are many interpretations, hence the poor are generally convicted on the one, while the rich are freed on the many interpretations.” |
Quote #32
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Quote #33 |
Quote #34 |
Marcus Garvey quotes talk about someone who shared intimate moments of his life and a man who was known for his actions. He was considered one of the most notable activists in his day and even in ours. I hope his remarks provide motivation for all readers.
