Inspirational African American Quotes & Sayings

NEVER GO TO SLEEP KNOWING THE SAME THING YOU KNEW THE NIGHT BEFORE! — Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier

Any woman with kinky textured hair - can wear it, love it and manage it. She only needs the right tools, inspiration and motivation. — Monica Millner

I knew that I lived in a country in which the aspirations of black people were limited, marked-off. Yet I felt that I had to go somewhere and do something to redeem my being alive. — Richard Wright

Dealing with pain for surviving on this thirsty concrete — Kjiva

He's so happy," Eliot said dryly. "It's like he cooked something and it came out looking like the picture in the cookbook. — Lev Grossman

I've always had a theory that whenever guys and gals start swinging, they begin to lose interest in conquering the world. They just want a comfortable pad and stereo and wheels, and their thoughts turn to the good things of life - not to war. They loosen up, they live and they're more apt to let live. — Frank Sinatra

WHEN YOU FOLLOW THE WAYS OF YOUR ANCESTORS YOU WILL NEVER BE LOST.

LET YOUR ANCESTORS BE YOUR GUIDING LIGHT. — Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier

Most do violence to their natural aptitude, and thus attain superiority in nothing. — Baltasar Gracian

my grandmother would freak you the fuck out. — Michael Chabon

It's easy to choose doing what you love when there are people out there supporting you. — Hoodie Allen

You're surrounded by people in the waking period, and you feel their eyes and their hopes on you. You can't stand up under it. In the sleep period, you're free. — Isaac Asimov

PEOPLE DIE
THEIR ENERGY DON'T! — Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier

Don't let anyone rob you of hope. — Pope Francis

When I was little, I wanted to be a doctor. I was really interested in gore. My grandfather was an orthopedic surgeon and he had a lot of books in his library that I would just pore over. A lot of them had really horrible pictures of deformities. — Jennifer Egan

DON'T BE SO PREPARED FOR THE BATTLE,
TO THE POINT YOU FIND YOURSELF UNPREPARED FOR THE VICTORY!

WHEN YOU TRULY BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, YOU PREPARE FOR IT ALL! — Qwana M. BabyGirl Reynolds-Frasier

He had grown up among people to whom such emotions were unknown. The old Marquess's passion for his fields and woods was the love of the agriculturist and the hunter, not that of the naturalist or the poet; and the aristocracy of the cities regarded the country merely as so much soil from which to draw their maintenance. The gentlefolk never absented themselves from town but for a few weeks of autumn, when they went to their villas for the vintage, transporting thither all the diversions of city life and venturing no farther afield than the pleasure-grounds that were but so many open-air card-rooms, concert-halls and theatres. Odo's tenderness for every sylvan function of renewal and decay, every shifting of light and colour on the flying surface of the year, would have been met with the same stare with which a certain enchanting Countess — Edith Wharton

Surprise is the practice of accepting the unexpected interruption, and the practice of leaving enough space in the day for something to happen that isn't on the list. Surrendering to surprise is the practice of balancing structure and openness. — Christina Baldwin

Depression is like being under house arrest, only there is no house. — Lisa Eley

The times today are too dangerous for the young and the smart to be not bothered. Know the truth. Remember, "We can deny the truth. But, we can't avoid it." We have been there; we have all been there. Ask a female friend who is fighting for a better pay scale, ask the father of an immigrant who is nervous about the future of his daughter, ask a gay friend who is fighting for the right to marry, ask an African-American friend who wants her younger brother to be unafraid and proud, ask a homeless worker in Bangladesh whose house just got swept by rising sea levels, ask a young child in Beijing who breathes an air polluted by fossil fuels, ask a child labor in India who works ten hours and twelve hours to get two square meals a day. And, when you ask, you will know. You will know why we need to take it personally. — Sharad Vivek Sagar

Sometimes, reading a blog, which I do infrequently, I see that generations of Americans have been wilfully crippled, and can no longer spell or write a sentence. — Alice Walker

When we rise in the morning ... at the table we drink coffee which is provided to us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African; before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half the world. — Martin Luther King Jr.

I again flourished my papers: "Here're my credentials from the Coalition Administration."
The American scrutinized the papers, shook his head in amazement, and smiled. "A South African," he said. "You're sure a long way from home." He radioed through for instructions and indicated that I should bring my hired car up to the side of the roadblock and wait. — Lawrence Anthony

Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it. — Rosa Parks

For poetry and I are one
To separate is to decapitate
For my poetry is forever. — Kerry D. Brackett