Best 655 quotes in «africa quotes» category

And there’s one other matter I must raise. The epidemic of domestic sexual violence that lacerates the soul of South Africa is mirrored in the pattern of grotesque raping in areas of outright conflict from Darfur to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in areas of contested electoral turbulence from Kenya to Zimbabwe. Inevitably, a certain percentage of the rapes transmits the AIDS virus. We don’t know how high that percentage is. We know only that women are subjected to the most dreadful double jeopardy. The point must also be made that there’s no such thing as the enjoyment of good health for women who live in constant fear of rape. Countless strong women survive the sexual assaults that occur in the millions every year, but every rape leaves a scar; no one ever fully heals. This business of discrimination against and oppression of women is the world’s most poisonous curse. Nowhere is it felt with greater catastrophic force than in the AIDS pandemic. This audience knows the statistics full well: you’ve chronicled them, you’ve measured them, the epidemiologists amongst you have disaggregated them. What has to happen, with one unified voice, is that the scientific community tells the political community that it must understand one incontrovertible fact of health: bringing an end to sexual violence is a vital component in bringing an end to AIDS. The brave groups of women who dare to speak up on the ground, in country after country, should not have to wage this fight in despairing and lonely isolation. They should hear the voices of scientific thunder. You understand the connections between violence against women and vulnerability to the virus. No one can challenge your understanding. Use it, I beg you, use it.

Anger has great strength, but no brains. Greed has many hands, but no heart. Fear has many titles, but no honor. Hatred has many forms, but no soul. Desire has great strength, but no brains. Agony has many hands, but no heart. Shame has many titles, but no honor. Ego has many forms, but no soul. Envy has great strength, but no brains. Malice has many hands, but no heart. Lust has many titles, but no honor. Evil has many forms, but no soul.

Anger is strong, rage is mighty, wrath is powerful, but joy is invincible. Pain is strong, bitterness is mighty, despair is powerful, but hope is invincible. Doubt is strong, confusion is mighty, suspicion is powerful, but truth is invincible. Greed is strong, malice is mighty, pride is powerful, but virtue is invincible. Hate is strong, fear is mighty, jealousy is powerful, but love is invincible. Ignorance is strong, stupidity is mighty, folly is powerful, but wisdom is invincible. The mind is strong, the heart is mighty, the spirit is powerful, but the soul is invincible. The past is strong, the present is mighty, the future is powerful, but eternity is invincible.

A premature death does not only rob one of the countless instances where one would have experienced pleasure, it also saves one from the innumerable instances where one would have experienced pain.

As an African elite, look within and ask, what can I do to change the present African narratives? What niche can I carve and do my uncompromising best to lift this continent? For my sake and for the sake of my children - Jumoke Odepe

As an unavoidable result of the inevitable loss of some physical and/or some mental abilities, many a man who has been alive for many years has become a boy again.

As an ancient cradle of Iron Age civilization, Zimbabwe has a great emotional importance to the economy of Southern Africa and that's especially true for Botswana since both countries are landlocked. Harare was the site of some historic scenes and the best trade regimes, and it is where generations of Southern African children have gone for their education. Bulawayo was a trade giant amongst the people of the north – the Bakalanga, the Venda and the Shona. Now brick-by-brick the empire was facing a second fall after the last fall of the Great Zimbabwe.

As anyone who's ever taken an Ethiopian bus knows, there is an unwritten rule that the windows must remain firmly closed.

As children in a small village in Sierra Leone, my friends and I dreamed of travelling the world like the missionaries who opened our village school. As a British subject, I dreamed of walking the streets of London. I imagined my self in the United States of America visiting the places where the cowboy movies were made.

As bureaucracies accumulate power, they become immune to their own mistakes. Instead of changing their stories to fit reality, they can change reality to fit their stories. In the end, external reality matches their bureaucratic fantasies, but only because they forced reality to do so. For example, the borders of many African countries disregard river lines, mountain ranges and trade routes, split historical and economic zones unnecessarily, and ignore local ethnic and religious identities. The same tribe may find itself riven between several countries, whereas one country may incorporate splinters of numerous rival clans. Such problems bedevil countries all over the world, but in Africa they are particularly acute because modern African borders don’t reflect the wishes and struggles of local nations. They were drawn by European bureaucrats who never set foot in Africa.

As the sun began to rise, the man reached out to the woman, and they clasped hands. He cradled her, and languidly they lifted themselves up to their feet, their bodies brushing, their eyes lost in each other's. Sensuously, deliberately, they danced, moving as though they were one, their body language smooth as their limbs carefully unfolded. They twirled and rocked, intertwined and separated, nearly leaning onto one another but barely touching, their movements sometimes tender, sometimes almost violent...Moments passed while the dancers held tight to each other, as though their bodies were melting together. The expression on their features as they lifted their faces to the sky was one of unimaginable joy.

As he was about to press the button to shut the doors, a young woman stepped in. She had that sort of beauty that deserved to be prosecuted for appearing without notice. Professor Khupe was confident that an appropriate law existed for such a purpose. However, no prosecutor could remain undistracted for long enough to find the said law in the criminal code. The young lady would enjoy a life of impunity.

As they say: A baking man will grasp at a hangman. Whoever gets the job will be dragged into the heat, forced to wear a massive pair of iron shoes, and frogmarched across the minefield at gunpoint.

As their figures recede, it strikes Filsan as ironic that they had delayed fleeing so they could take as many of their possessions as possible, but now those very possessions prevent their flight.

As we all know, as if forever exploiting or attempting to exploit each other were not enough, a group of sane human beings who have just reached the end of a war against a common enemy of theirs will sooner or later start or continue killing and/or fighting against each other.

As you strive for personal effectiveness and leadership excellence, there are local and global questions that you will inevitably have to face. These range from poverty, corruption, terrorism, food security, scarcity of resources and overpopulation among others. Your power and influence for significance in leadership excellence will increase in direct proportion to your ability to find effective and sustainable practical solutions to some of these real-life challenges.

As we stand on the precipice of a life of ministry, we will have to answer the question that Jesus poses to each one of us: Are you willing to count the cost?

A seemingly simple task like taking a bath or wearing a condom feels like multitasking to someone who suffers from hemiplegia or has only one hand.

A simple act of kindness and compassion towards a single animal may not mean anything to all creatures, but will mean everything to one.

As it was, being a Zimbabwean immigrant was the worst thing a person could be in Southern Africa. They were the new Hebrews – homeless.

As tall as Mount Everest. As quiet as a lamb. As unending as power in the hands of the African leader. ~Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

As the seemingly well-intentioned French journalist spoke about Africa’s scarcity and its limited resources, Nine smiled to himself almost condescendingly. He considered such statements an absolute joke. Africa did not, nor did it ever have, limited resources. Nine knew something the journalist obviously didn’t: Africa was the most abundantly resourced continent on the planet bar none. Like the despots who ruled much of the region, and the foreign governments who propped them up, he knew there was more than enough wealth in Africa’s mineral resources such as gold, diamonds and oil – not to mention the land that nurtured these resources – for every man, woman and child. He thought it unfortunate Africa had never been able to compete on a level playing field. The continent’s almost unlimited resources were the very reason foreigners had meddled in African affairs for the past century or more. Nine knew it was Omega’s plan, and that of other greedy organizations, to siphon as much wealth as they could out of vulnerable Third World countries, especially in Africa. The same organizations had the formula down pat: they indirectly started civil wars in mineral-rich regions by providing arms to opposing local factions, and sometimes even helped to create famines, in order to destabilize African countries. This made the targeted countries highly vulnerable to international control. Once the outside organizations had divided and conquered, they were then able to plunder the country’s resources.

At conception I had the soul of an Egyptian, at birth I had the soul of an Ethiopian, at death I had the soul of an African, and at resurrection I had the soul of God. At conception, I was a citizen of creation. At labor, I was a citizen of the world. At delivery, I was a citizen of the universe, and at death, I became a citizen of Heaven.

At most, a hundred paces separated him from them. The powerful beast, seeing the riders and horses, rose on his fore paws and began to gaze at them. The sun, which now stood low, illuminated his huge head and shaggy breasts, and in that ruddy luster he was like one of those sphinxes which ornament the entrances to ancient Egyptian temples.

A traveller moves among real people in their own milieu and learns from them, soaking up their wisdom and philosophy, their way of being in the world. A tourist simply hops from one tourist highpoint to another, skimming across the surface, cramming in quantity rather than quality, and comes away with his soul and imagination unchanged, untouched by the wonder of a life lived differently.

A traditional house smelled of wood smoke, the earth, and of thatch; all good smells, the smell of life itself.

At times, we need to be like the weed, which bends in the wind,' the old shaman eventually says.

At one level the story of the second fall of Zimbabwe can be read as tragic yet a courageous one: a simple but soaring binary about unfounded courage in the face of immeasurable oppression. But at another level, it is a window into a much more complex, perhaps even darker and sadder, narrative about contemporary slaveship and the terrible collision of aspiration and frustration and the need to survive that has been unleashed upon the people of Zimbabwe. Exploitation and oppression are not matters of race.

A visiting scientist tell of Africa’s disappearing wilderness: More than two-thirds of its wildlife had already been eliminated, pushed out of its habitats by large ranches and urban sprawl. In the southern regions, thousands of predators were being trapped, shot, snared, and poisoned to protect domestic stock. In some African nations, conservation policies and practices were virtually nonexistent.

Awareness is the stepping stone to truth, truth is the stepping stone to light, and light is the stepping stone to God. Existence is the stepping stone to time, time is the stepping stone to reality, and reality is the stepping stone to experience. Virtue is the stepping stone to love, love is the stepping stone to enlightenment, and enlightenment is the stepping stone to freedom. Valor is the stepping stone to hope, hope is the stepping stone to faith, and enlightenment is the stepping stone to miracles. Compassion is the stepping stone to understanding, understanding is the stepping stone to peace, and peace is the stepping stone to humanity. Humility is the stepping stone to patience, patience is the stepping stone to discipline, and discipline is the stepping stone to character. Contentment is the stepping stone to fulfillment, fulfillment is the stepping stone to happiness, and happiness is the stepping stone to laughter.

Be true to yourself. Be true to others. Be true to everyone. Be false to none. Insecure people don’t know who they are, fearless people embrace who they are, self-aware people know who they are, and self-respecting people love who they are.

-Back there our sun doesn't speak. -Where's "there," Miss Marta? -Back there, in Europe. Here, it's different. Here, the sun moans, whispers, shouts. -Surely-I commented delicately-the sun is always the same. - You're wrong. There, the sun is a stone. Here it's a fruit.

Because it is a systematic negation of the other person and a furious determination to deny the other person all attributes of humanity, colonialism forces the people it dominates to ask themselves the question constantly: "In reality, who am I?" The defensive attitudes created by this violent bringing together of the colonised man and the colonial system form themselves into a structures which then reveals the colonised personality. This 'sensitivity' is easily understood if we simply study and are alive to the number and depth of the injuries inflicted upon a native during a single day spent amidst the colonial regime. It must in any case be remembered that a colonised people is not only simply a dominated people. Under the German occupation the French remained men; under the French occupation, the Germans remained men. In Algeria there is not simply the domination but the decision to the letter not to occupy anything more than the sum total of the land.

Be persistent, be persistent, they say. But please, do not mistake being a pest for being persistent.

Being a hangman requires you to take someone else’s life based on someone else’s judgment, and carry it out on someone else’s schedule. The job does not provide the same satisfaction that an ordinary murderer gets from smashing a skull. It robs them of the fulfillment of plunging a knife into someone’s throat. In the world of capital punishment, the prisoner’s crimes have been sanitized by years of sitting on death row. By then, the execution is a cold and impersonal affair. There is prayer, a noose, and a few last words. The prisoner then experiences a sudden rush of blood to the head. At the end of it all, you have a broken neck and a dead body swinging from the end of a rope. That is it. You don’t get to manhandle them with your own hands. That’s why the brutes you mention will never be hired. So you see, Vaida, this is not a job for a murderer. It is a job for a humanitarian.

Being rich or famous is the only profound thing that some people have ever said.

Black(people) hold onto their God just as the drunken man holds on to the street lamp post—for physical support only.

Blood is a reservoir of delights. It is a treasure trove for those who know what to look for, and how to isolate it from the rest of the junk. I know how to do both.

Boredom is probably more frequent and more tormenting if you do not have sight or hands.

Born in 1938, Ellen Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa, serving as the 24th President of Liberia from January 16, 2006, until January 22, 2018. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and received the Indira Gandhi Prize from Pranab Mukherjee, President of India. In 2014, she was listed as the 70th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine.

But wasn't that progress too, that the elephants were killed off like the mastodon and giant rhino before them, like all other wildlife and wild places? 'We can't stop time,' MacAdam said. 'But you can change the way it goes,' Nehemiah insisted.

But in Africa bureaucrats are usually too proud to accept a bribe, something I admire when I'm not the one being arrested.

But Pascal quickly forgave me, and it's a good thing, since friends of my own age and gender were not available, the girls of Kilanga all being too busy hauling around firewood, water, or babies. It did cross my mind to wonder why Pascal had the freedom to play and roam that his sisters didn't. While the little boys ran around pretending to shoot each other and fall dead in the road, it appeared that little girls were running the country.

By all means, learn beyond the classroom. In the end, thats all that will matter

By the Middle Ages… the introduction of the Trivium was well-known: SÂDI, an educated black from Tombouctou, author of the well-known work entitled, ‘Tarikh es-Soudan’ cites amongst the subjects that he mastered, logic, dialection, grammar, rhetoric, not to mention law and other disciplines...the long lists of subjects studied and the lettered African intellectuals who taught them at the University of Tombouctou…

Call up the ever-pure, the effulgent and the ever-radiant character of true humanism in yourself and in others, and no racism shall have the power to thrive in such society even for a few seconds.

Can you shoot a person if you have to?" "Do you think these men had anything to do with the explosion?" "Yes." He did, but he'd have said yes either way. "Then I will blow the motherfuckers' squirrel-sized peckers off.

Character is a choice whatever the circumstance; In the NRM you can choose to be a Hon. Ruhakana Rugunda, an Ofwono Opondo or a Tamale Mirundi. And in the Opposition you can choose to be a Gen. Mugisha Muntu, a Munyagwa or a Kato Lubwama.

Change is not only a topic of discussion, transformative change is effected through action.

Chance is what is, fate is what was, and destiny is what will be. The present is what is, the past is what was, and the future is what will be. Reality is what is, experience is what was, and discovery is what will be. The action is what is, the intention is what was, and the outcome is what will be. Nature is what is, oblivion is what was, and eternity is what will be. Awareness is what is, perfection is what was, and paradise is what will be. The world is what is, the beginning is what was, and the end is what will be. The Creator is what is, the Creator is what was, and the Creator is what will be.