Best 655 quotes in «africa quotes» category

My journey through the Congo had its ow unique category. It did not quite do it justice to call it adventure travel, and it certainly wasn't pleasure travel. My Congo journey deserved its own category: ordeal travel. At every turn I faced challenges, difficulties and threats when in the Congo. The challenge was to assess and choose the option best suited to making progress. But there were moments when there were no alternatives, or shortcuts or clever ideas. At these times, ordeal travel became really no ordeal at all.

My story has more than a "great white hope" plot. I loved and respected Tom because he was a servant of God who happened to be white, just as I feel I am a servant of God who happens to be black and from Africa.

My squad was my family, my gun was my provider and protector, and my rule was to kill or be killed. The extent of my thoughts didn’t go much beyond that. We had been fighting for over two years, and killing had become a daily activity. I felt no pity for anyone.

Nature is the guardian of Africa. While the sun lights the African sky in day time, the moon begs the world to help her lighting Africa in the night

Needs crawls. Want walks. Desire runs. Lust sprints. Love soars. Peace crawls. Pleasure walks. Excitement runs. Happiness sprints. Joy soars. Doubt crawls. Expectation walks. Hope runs. Courage sprints. Faith soars. Skill crawls. Talent walks. Excellence runs. Brilliance sprints. Genius soars. Intelligence crawls. Insight walks. Understanding runs. Wisdom sprints. Enlightenment soars.

Negative thoughts prevent mindfulness. Negative desires hinder happiness. Negative habits counter excellence. Negative people disturb peacefulness. Positive thoughts foster brilliance. Positive desires promote joyfulness. Positive habits encourage blessedness. Positive people inspire transcendence.

Never argue with a fool, people might not notice the difference

Never before in history has such a sweeping fervor for freedom expressed itself in great mass movements which are driving down the bastions of empire. This wind of change blowing through Africa, as I have said before, is no ordinary wind. It is a raging hurricane against which the old order cannot stand [...] The great millions of Africa, and of Asia, have grown impatient of being hewers of wood and drawers of water, and are rebelling against the false belief that providence created some to be menials of others. Hence the twentieth century has become the century of colonial emancipation, the century of continuing revolution which must finally witness the total liberation of Africa from colonial rule and imperialist exploitation.

Never complete. Never whole. White skin and an African soul.

Never forsake your motherland.

Never is a man more proud than when he shuffles paper in front of an illiterate person.

New York! I say New York, let black blood flow into your blood. Let it wash the rust from your steel joints, like an oil of life Let it give your bridges the curve of hips and supple vines. Now the ancient age returns, unity is restored, The recociliation of the Lion and Bull and Tree Idea links to action, the ear to the heart, sign to meaning. See your rivers stirring with musk alligators And sea cows with mirage eyes. No need to invent the Sirens. Just open your eyes to the April rainbow And your eyes, especially your ears, to God Who in one burst of saxophone laughter Created heaven and earth in six days, And on the seventh slept a deep Negro sleep.

Nkrumah declared that we faced neither East nor West but we faced forward. But, see, we can face forward and just look at the horizon. Sometimes, as I think of Ghana, I am tempted to believe that we kept looking East and West and never made up our minds, so we just stood still.

No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.

No man can live this life and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the brand which marks the nomad; and he will have within him the yearning to return, weak or insistent according to his nature. For this cruel land can cast a spell which no temperate clime can match.

Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.

No one in the world needs a Rhino horn but a Rhino.

Not all diseases come from bacteria and viruses, Professor. The worst often come from things you cannot see under a microscope. This plant is infested with an aggressive strain of such invisible germs.

No nation has ever been able to transform by chance. Its always a deliberate and conscious process

No one starts a war warning that those involved will lose their innocence - that children will definitely die and be forever lost as a result of the conflict; that the war will not end for generations and generations, even after cease-fires have been declared and peace treaties have been signed. No one starts a war that way, but they should. It would at least be fair warning and an honest admission: even a good war - if there is such a thing - will kill anyone old enough to die.

Not everyone who talks less or keeps quiet whenever they are with or around you does that because they find you interesting or knowledgeable; some people do that because they find you boring or ignorant.

Oh God, not another fucking beautiful day.

Not much was said of Gaberone except its riches and its danger. The prisons were said to be in-escapable, the shanty towns cheap, the police didn’t bother the illegal immigrants unless they were caught committing crimes. A dangerous paradise.

Obwohl diese afrikanischen Militärbanden oft nicht größer oder mächtiger sind als die organisierten kriminellen Banden in Asien oder Osteuropa, wird über ihre Aktivitäten in den Medien - sogar in den westlichen Medien - unter der Rubrik Politik (Geschehen aus aller Welt) respektvoll berichtet, statt unter der Rubrik Verbrechen.

On dit premier gaou n’est pas gaou, c’est deuxième gaou...

On any basic figure of the Africans landed alive in the Americas, one would have to make several extensions- starting with a calculation to cover mortality in transshipment. The Atlantic crossing, or “Middle Passage,” as it was called by European slavers, was notorious for the number of deaths incurred, averaging in the vicinity of 15-20 per cent. There were also numerous deaths in Africa between time of capture and time of embarkation, especially in cases where captives had to travel hundreds of miles to the coast. Most important of all (given that warfare was the principal means of obtaining captives) it is necessary to make some estimate of the number of people killed and injured so as to extract the millions who were taken alive and sound. The resultant figure would be many times the millions landed alive outside of Africa, and it is that figure which represents the number of Africans directly removed from the population and labor force of Africa because of the establishment of slave production by Europeans. Pg. 96

One by one and then together the birds chanted, warbled, whistled, and cooed, like a rare desert plant bursting into life after the rain.

One candidate who considered applying for the position explained his change of heart: “That job is like unprotected sex. It feels amazing at the time, but there is a good chance you will pay for it later. None of the benefits are worth the pleasure.

One word can lift a mind. One smile can soothe a heart. One touch can heal a soul. One act can change a world. One mind can lift a people. One heart can soothe a nation. One soul can touch a continent. One deed can change mankind.

One morning, as he sat at his desk, he heard the sound of a horse's hooves on the path outside his house. He stepped out on to the verandah. There, on a tall grey horse, sat Morgane. 'I've come to have my picture painted,' she said. She took off her hat and her long black hair cascaded below her shoulders. 'You said you would,' she added, before dismounting. She wore a pair of moleskin jodhpurs and a white shirt, open at the neck. Her skin was radiant from the African sun.

One of them confessed to Paul that his tribe had heard stories about the fiercely cannibalistic ways of white men. Paul's first instinct was to laugh him off as a simpleminded fool. But the legend hadn't been conjured from thin air. When Paul tried to assure him that white men didn't eat black men, the man confronted him with a direct challenge: explain why they bought and sold Africans as if they were cattle, not human beings. "Why do you come from nobody knows where, and carry off our men, and women, and children?" the man asked Paul. "Do you not fatten them in your far country and eat them?

One is that if women’s sexuality in Africa wasn’t under assault, if women were able to say no, if women weren’t subject to predatory attacks by men, or predatory behavior generally, then you would have a disease in Africa called AIDS. But you wouldn’t have a pandemic.

On our way back to her house, I didn’t look at the city lights any longer. I looked into the sky and felt as if the moon was following us. When I was a child, my grandmother told me that the sky speaks to those who look and listen to it. She said, “In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy, and confusion.” That night I wanted the sky to talk to me.

(On the beginning of the mid-1990s' genocidal war in Rwanda:) Within six weeks, an estimated 800,000 Tutsi, representing about three-quarters of the Tutsi then remaining in Rwanda, or 11% of Rwanda's total population, had been killed.

On ne doit pas laisser le passé glisser dans l'oubli, mais s’en inspirer pour briser les chaînes de la vassalité et de l'exiguïté afin de rencontrer la liberté.

Our brain is a circuit board with neurons and terminals ready to be wired. We are born free, then programmed to obey our parents, to tell the truth, pass exams, pursue and achieve, love and propagate, age and fade unfulfilled and uncertain what it has all been for. We swallow the operating system with our mother's milk and sleepwalk into the forest of consumer illusion craving shoes, houses, cars, magazines, experiences that endorse our preconceived dreams and opinions. We grow into our parents. We becomes clones, robots, matchstick men thinking and saying the same, feeling the same, behaving the same, appreciating in books and films and art shows those things we already recognize and understand.

Oral tradition is practised in most African cultures: ideals, family histories and legacies are handed down from one generation to the other physically or verbally. However, this system is flawed in the sense that a lot of African innovation, experience and culture have been lost, undocumented.

(On WWI:) A man of importance had been shot at a place I could not pronounce in Swahili or in English, and, because of this shooting, whole countries were at war. It seemed a laborious method of retribution, but that was the way it was being done. ... A messenger came to the farm with a story to tell. It was not a story that meant much as stories went in those days. It was about how the war progressed in German East Africa and about a tall young man who was killed in it. ... It was an ordinary story, but Kibii and I, who knew him well, thought there was no story like it, or one as sad, and we think so now. The young man tied his shuka on his shoulder one day and took his shield and his spear and went to war. He thought war was made of spears and shields and courage, and he brought them all. But they gave him a gun, so he left the spear and the shield behind him and took the courage, and went where they sent him because they said this was his duty and he believed in duty. ... He took the gun and held it the way they had told him to hold it, and walked where they told him to walk, smiling a little and looking for another man to fight. He was shot and killed by the other man, who also believed in duty, and he was buried where he fell. It was so simple and so unimportant. But of course it meant something to Kibii and me, because the tall young man was Kibii's father and my most special friend. Arab Maina died on the field of action in the service of the King. But some said it was because he had forsaken his spear.

Our cultural roots are the most ancient in the world. The spiritual concepts of our Ancestors gave birth to religious thought African people believe in the oneness of the African family through sacred time, which unites the past, the present and the future. Our Ancestors live with us.

Out of Africa, there is always something new.

Over a century now after Dr. William Gorgas wiped Yellow Fever out of Havana and Panama, and by that out of an entire continent, and more than half a century after Fred Lowe Soper led the eradication of Anopheles gambiae out of Northeast Brazil, their names are unknown, their carefully-detailed, boots-on-the-ground methods that they described in detail to leave expressly for generations to study and learn from to apply to malaria - and specifically they both had the desire for the destruction of malaria in Africa on their minds - is unread. The mistakes they warned about, the assumptions that they discovered to be useless and ineffectual in the field against disease-bearing mosquitoes are repeated today, while what Gorgas and Soper found to be effective and efficient in real-life conditions are routinely ignored or unknown, avoidable errors blithely doomed to be repeated thanks to modern ignorance of their incredibly important and transformative historical successes in public health. In the battles against malaria, to be ignorant of Gorgas’ and Soper's work in eradicating the mosquito that carries it is to be hobbled by the lack of hard-earned field knowledge, practical and effective discoveries that remain completely relevant and critical to success in eradicating malaria today.

Peace is an ocean, harmony is the ship, tolerance is the captain, and strife is the storm. Joy is an ocean, faith is the ship, hope is the captain, and despair is the storm. Love is an ocean, kindness is the ship, compassion is the captain, and greed is the storm. Virtue is an ocean, prudence is the ship, goodness is the captain, and vice is the storm. Friendship is an ocean, trust is the ship, patience is the captain, and betrayal is the storm. Destiny is an ocean, purpose is the ship, character is the captain, and misfortune is the storm. Experience is an ocean, the present is the ship, the past is the captain, and pain is the storm. The soul is an ocean, the heart is the ship, the soul is the captain, and darkness is the storm. Life is an ocean, reality is the ship, awareness is the captain, and mortality is the storm. Eternity is an ocean, time is the ship, destiny is the captain, and death is the storm.

Peace in your mind is patience, in your heart is confidence, in your soul is contentedness, and in your life is happiness. Joy in your mind is stillness, in your heart is pleasantness, in your soul is kindness, and in your life is friendliness. Love in your mind is goodness, in your heart is benevolence, in your soul is graciousness, and in your life is tenderness.

Passion is the fire to all great things.

Patriotism is the narcissism of countries.

Peace and gladness in every home is a peace for the society, nation and the world.

People disdain unskilled leaders, loathe unjust leaders, dread ruthless leaders, honor righteous leaders, and cherish enlightened leaders. Leaders disdain idle subordinates, loathe incompetent subordinates, dread disloyal subordinates, honor ethical subordinates, and cherish resourceful subordinates.

People are wrong when they tell you that Conrad was on the side of Africans because his story showed great compassion towards them. Africans are not really served by his compassion, whatever it means; they ask for one thing alone – to be seen for what they are: human beings. Conrad pulls back from granting them this favour in Heart of Darkness.

People disdain unskilled leaders, loathe unjust leaders, dread ruthless leaders, honor righteous leaders, and cherish enlightened leaders. Leaders disdain incompetent subordinates, loathe biased subordinates, dread mean subordinates, honor ethical subordinates, and cherish resourceful subordinates.

Pescatore marveled at the seascape. It gave him vertigo. The wind deployed cloud formations. The sun seared the Moroccan coastline. He had read a line once about "the lion-colored hills of Africa." Were they lion-colored? What color was a lion exactly?