
Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus
Muhammad Speaks (4 December 1964)
Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus
Part II: "The White Race and Its Heroes"
1960s, Soul on Ice (1968)
Interview in Playboy (January 1965) https://web.archive.org/web/20080706183244/http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/features/mlk/04.html
1960s
Context: I met Malcolm X once in Washington, but circumstances didn't enable me to talk with him for more than a minute. He is very articulate … but I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views — at least insofar as I understand where he now stands. I don't want to seem to sound self-righteous, or absolutist, or that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer. I don't know how he feels now, but I know that I have often wished that he would talk less of violence, because violence is not going to solve our problem. And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice. Fiery, demagogic oratory in the black ghettos, urging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief.
Letter 136, to Malcolm Darling, 6 November 1914
Selected Letters (1983-1985)
“those who escape hell
however
never talk about
it
and nothing much
bothers them
after
that.”
“To die for one’s country is such a worthy fate
That all compete for so beautiful a death.”
Mourir pour le pays est un si digne sort,
Qu’on briguerait en foule une si belle mort.
Horace, act II, scene iii.
Horace (1639)