Page:Marcus Garvey - Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey (2009 printing).pdf/4

 Chapter I

History is the landmark by which we are directed into the true course of life. The history of a movement, the history of a nation, the history of a race is the guide-post of that movement’s destiny, that nation's destiny, that race's destiny. What you do today that is worthwhile, inspires others to act at some future time.

Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom.

Life is that existence that is given to man to live for a purpose, to live to his own satisfaction and pleasure, providing he forgets not the God who created him and who expects a spiritual obedience and observation of the moral laws that He has inspired.

There is nothing in the world common to man, that man cannot do.

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 even into eternity.

It is only the belief and the confidence we have in a God why man is able to understand his own social institutions, and move and live like a rational human being. Take away the highest ideal: faith and confidence in a God, and mankind at large is reduced to savagery and the race destroyed.

A race without authority and power, is a race without respect.

Criticism is an opinion for good or ill, generally indulged in by the fellow who knows more than anyone else, yet the biggest fool. There is no criticism that calls not forth yet another. The last critic is the biggest fool of all, for the world starts and ends with him. He is the source of all knowledge, yet knows nothing, for there is not a word one finds to use that there is not another that hath the same meaning, then wherefore do we criticize? 4 Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey edited by Amy Jacques-Garvey The Journal of Pan African Studies 2009 eBook