Eboni Joy

Words to live by...
"I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect."
~June Jordan
"We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond." / "Behold, Love's true and triumphs, and God's actual."
~Gwendolyn Brooks
"I found God in myself and I loved her / I loved her fiercely"
~Ntozake Shange (For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf)
"Amerikkka... If it takes my death to organize my people to revolt against you, and to organize your jails to revolt against you, and to organize your troops to revolt against you, and to organize your children to revolt against you, and to organize your poor to revolt against you, and to organize Mankind to rejoice in your destruction and ruin. Then here is my life! But my soul belongs to my people. LASIMA TUSHINDE MBILASHAKA (we shall conquer without a doubt)"
~Imam Jamil Al Amin (formerly H. Rap Brown)
"It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens."
~Baha'u'llah
"A man has to learn that he cannot command things, but that he can command himself; that he cannot coerce the wills of others, but that he can mold and master his own will: and things serve him who serves Truth; people seek guidance of him who is master of himself."
~ James Allen
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
~Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love)
"Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail."
~Marva Collins
"Es mejor morir de pie que vivir de rodillas" (It is better to die standing on one's feet, than to live on your knees.)
~ Emiliano Zapata
“Whatever defamation of character my enemies are spreading about me, I do not feel the need to justify myself toward them. While discretion obliges me to remain silent, my duty compels me to prevent them from doing any more harm.”
~ Toussaint Louverture
"Intention is the core of all conscious life. It is our intentions that create karma, our intentions that help others, our intentions that lead us away from the delusions of individuality toward the immutable verities of enlightened awareness. Conscious intention colors and moves everything."
~ Master Hsing Yun (Describing the Indescribable)
"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.” / "Never wound a snake, kill it."
~Harriet Tubman
"A fool may be known by six things: anger, without cause; speech, without profit; change, without progress; inquiry without object; putting trust in a stranger; and mistaking foes for friends."
~Arabian Proverb
"Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it political? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, nor popular - but one must take it simply because it is right." / "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."
~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."
~Victor Hugo
"To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and to endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal I cannot be comprehended except by my permission"
~Nikki Giovanni (Ego Tripping: there may be a reason why)
"As we grow up, we learn that even the one person that wasn't supposed to ever let you down probably will. You will have your heart broken probably more than once, and it's harder every time. You'll break hearts too, so remember how it felt when yours was broken. You'll fight with your best friend. You'll blame a new love for things an old one did. You'll cry because time is passing too fast and you'll eventually lose someone you love. So take too many pictures, laugh too much, and love like you've never been hurt because every sixty seconds you spend upset is a minute of happiness you'll never get back. Don't be afraid that your life will end, be afraid that it will never begin."
~Unknown
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
~Margaret Mead
"Every time a man has contributed to the victory of the dignity of spirit, every time a man has said no to subjugate his fellows, I have felt solidarity with his act."
~ Frantz Fannon
"I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who is for or against it. I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole."
~El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X)
"Truth is powerful and it prevails." / "It is the mind that makes the body."
~Sojourner Truth
"For anything worth having one must pay the price; and the price is always work, patience, love, self-sacrifice - no paper currency, no promises to pay, but the gold of real service."
~John Burroughs
"A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots."
~Marcus Mosiah Garvey
"Words that do not match deeds are unimportant" / "I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." / "Our every action is a battle cry against imperialism, and a battle hymn for the people's unity against the great enemy of mankind: the United States of America. Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this, our battle cry, may have reached some receptive ear, that another hand may be extended to wield our weapons, and that other men be ready to intone our funeral dirge with the staccato singing of the machine guns and new battle cries of war and victory." / "There are no boundaries in this struggle to the death. We cannot be indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world, for a victory by any country over imperialism is our victory; just as any country's defeat is a defeat for all of us." / "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality."
~ Ernesto "Che" Guevara
"For my people standing staring trying to fashion a better way from confusion, from hypocrisy and misunderstanding, trying to fasion a world that will hold all the people, all the faces, all the adams and eves and their countless generations; Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth; let a people loving freedom come to growth. Let a beauty full of healing and a strength of final clenching be the pulsing in our spirits and our blood. Let the martial songs be written, let the dirges disappear. Let a race of men now rise and take control. "
~Margaret Walker