All the gods are dead except the god of war.
Eldridge Cleaver

History could pass for a scarlet text, its jot and title graven red in human blood.
Eldridge Cleaver

I feel that I am a citizen of the American dream and that the revolutionary struggle of which I am a part is a struggle against the American nightmare.
Eldridge Cleaver

I have taken an oath in my heart to oppose communism until the day I die.
Eldridge Cleaver

If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can change, then there is hope for America.
Eldridge Cleaver

In prison, those things withheld from and denied to the prisoner become precisely what he wants most of all.
Eldridge Cleaver

Respect commands itself and can neither be given nor withheld when it is due.
Eldridge Cleaver

The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less.
Eldridge Cleaver

The Twist was a guided missile launched from the ghetto into the heart of suburbia. The Twist succeeded, as politics, religion and law could never do, in writing in the heart and soul what the Supreme Court could only write on the books.
Eldridge Cleaver

There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national self-respect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and greatness.
Eldridge Cleaver


Too much agreement kills a chat.
Eldridge Cleaver

What America demands in her black champions is a brilliant, powerful body and a dull, bestial mind.
Eldridge Cleaver

You don't have to teach people how to be human. You have to teach them how to stop being inhuman.
Eldridge Cleaver

You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.
Eldridge Cleaver