Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today

Attributed to Malcolm X 1925–1965 · Muslim minister, Black nationalist and human-rights activist
Attributed In copyright

No speech transcript, essay or book of Malcolm X’s is known to carry this line. Its one documented appearance is in Maya Angelou’s memoir All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (Random House, 1986) ↗, where she recalls him saying it to her in Accra — and her printed wording is slightly longer than the version that circulates.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Unconfirmed quote & credit

“Don't be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn't do what you do, or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.” Malcolm X, as recalled by Maya Angelou in All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (Random House, 1986)

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The Estate of Maya Angelou and Random House (Penguin Random House)). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Malcolm X — Muslim minister and Black nationalist leader. Theme: "Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The one place it is written down

Recorded in
All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes
Author and edition
Maya Angelou · Random House, New York, 1986
Scene
Accra, Ghana, 1964 — Angelou driving Malcolm X to the airport
Status
A memoirist’s recollection, not a transcript

Malcolm said, “Sister, listen and listen carefully. Picture American racism as a mountain…” — and, further on: “… strata of American life and we are being attacked on each one. We need people on each level to fight our battle. Don’t be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn’t do what you do, or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today.” His voice had become more explanatory and less accusatory. Ellipses mark text the snippet view does not expose

Transcribed from the scanned 1986 Random House edition through Open Library’s full-text search ↗, which returns the passage in short windows; the gaps are text the search view withholds, not editorial cuts. One exception, marked here rather than folded in: the closing sentence — “His voice had become more explanatory and less accusatory” — is not returned by the search inside the Random House scan. It is reproduced from the one scan whose window does expose it, Pamela Loos’s Maya Angelou (Chelsea House), quoting the same passage.

Scanned first edition (lending copy)
Borrow the 1986 Random House edition at the Internet Archive
Find the sentence inside the book via Open Library full-text search

How the trail runs

  • Wikiquote does not place this among Malcolm X’s sourced speeches and books. It sits in the Attributed section ↗, annotated “Quoted by Maya Angelou” and pointing to two second-hand printings: Conyers and Smallwood’s Malcolm X: An Historical Reader (Carolina Academic Press, 2008), p. 181, and Elaine Slivinski Lisandrelli’s Maya Angelou: More than a poet (Enslow, 1996), p. 90.
  • Full-text search of scanned books runs the trail back to Angelou herself: Open Library’s search-inside ↗ returns the sentence from every scanned edition of All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes, and from the later biographies and readers that quote her.
  • Wikipedia’s featured article on the memoir places the scene: Malcolm X visited Ghana in 1964, and while Angelou drove him to the airport ↗ he “chastises her for her bitterness about Du Bois’ wife Shirley Graham’s lack of support for the civil rights movement.”
  • The estate’s own site is no help at all: malcolmx.com ↗ prints the trimmed internet wording with no citation — the same sourceless form the aggregators carry.
In copyright

Malcolm X spoke the words, but the only fixed text of them belongs to Maya Angelou: All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes was first published by Random House in 1986, so the passage is firmly in copyright in the United States. Treat it as her reported speech, quote it short, and credit both.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What gets lost in the copying

The name on this one is probably right. What is wrong is almost everything around it — the wording, the missing source, and the impression that it comes from a speech.

The trimmed internet version Paraphrase

Angelou printed “Don’t be in such a hurry to condemn a person because he doesn’t do what you do, or think as you think or as fast.” The version on Goodreads ↗ and the aggregators drops “such” and “a person”.

“Malcolm X” with nothing after it Unsourced

Even the estate-managed malcolmx.com ↗ lists it as a bare quotation, with no speech, date, book or page attached.

Malcolm X, on the record Not a transcript

Wikiquote ↗ keeps it out of its sourced sections for Malcolm X Speaks, the Autobiography and the 1962–65 speeches, filing it under Attributed with the note “Quoted by Maya Angelou.”

The honest version: Malcolm X said something very close to this, in a car in Accra in 1964, and the only person who wrote it down was Maya Angelou — in a memoir published in 1986 ↗.

Context

Why he said it

Angelou was living in Accra when Malcolm X came through Ghana in 1964, looking for allies among Africa’s newly independent governments. She had been bitter about Shirley Graham — W. E. B. Du Bois’s wife — and her lack of support for the American civil rights movement, and she said so while driving him to the airport. The rebuke came back at her from the passenger seat.

The answer she remembered is not a greeting-card plea for tolerance. It is organising advice, and the famous sentence is only its tail: picture racism as a mountain attacked at every level, so you need people working at every level, so do not write off the ones cutting a different seam. The internet kept the kind part and quietly dropped the strategy.

“We need people on each level to fight our battle.”

What the fuller passage actually says

Angelou’s narration around the line is as telling as the line. Just before it she is, in her words, “the object of his displeasure”; a passenger named Julian shifts in an uncomfortable seat; a voice in the car says “Keep your eyes on the road.” Then: “Sister, listen and listen carefully.”

Just after it, in the passage as reproduced by her biographer Pamela Loos: “His voice had become more explanatory and less accusatory.” The correction lands, then softens. That shape is probably why the sentence travels so well by itself — and why it reads flatter without the mountain that comes before it.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Humility Kindness Growth

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Malcolm X (Attributed section)en.wikiquote.org

Lists the line under Attributed with the note “Quoted by Maya Angelou” — deliberately not among the sourced speeches or books.
Open Library: search inside scanned booksopenlibrary.org

Finds the sentence inside every scanned edition of Angelou’s memoir, and in the later biographies and readers that quote her.
All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes (1986 scan)archive.org

The Random House first edition, 236 pages, borrowable through the Internet Archive’s lending library.
Wikipedia: All God's Children Need Traveling Shoesen.wikipedia.org

Featured article on the memoir; dates the Ghana years to 1962–1965 and describes the drive to the airport where Malcolm X rebuked Angelou.
malcolmx.com quote pagewww.malcolmx.com

The estate-managed site prints the trimmed internet wording with no source attached — a neat illustration of how the line travels.
Goodreads quote entrywww.goodreads.com

The circulating wording with no book named; Goodreads itself warns that its quotes are community-added and unverified.

The man credited

Who was Malcolm X?

Malcolm X

1925–1965 · Muslim minister and Black nationalist leader

Born Malcolm Little in 1925, he became the most electrifying minister of the Nation of Islam and, after leaving it, an independent voice for Black self-determination — “an African American revolutionary, civil rights activist, and Muslim minister,” as Wikipedia sums him up. In 1964 he travelled through Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea and half a dozen other African countries, meeting officials and courting the newly independent governments; the Ghana leg is where Maya Angelou says these words were spoken. He was assassinated on 21 February 1965, at thirty-nine.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Cite this page

Maya Angelou, All God’s Children Need Traveling Shoes (New York: Random House, 1986), recalling Malcolm X’s words to her in Accra, Ghana, 1964. Filed under “Attributed” in Wikiquote’s Malcolm X entry; no speech or text by Malcolm X himself is known to carry the line.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/dont-be-in-a-hurry-to-condemn-because-he-doesnt-do-what-you/

Something wrong on this page?

Tell us what’s off. A link helps but isn’t required — “this is the wrong person” is a useful report on its own. Nothing here changes the page directly; it goes to our review queue and a human checks it.

Only used to tell you if we act on your report. We never sell or share it.

Copied