Quotes About Africa
“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its
votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man
as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The
effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly
systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of
property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A
degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the
next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every
woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a
child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of
slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among
men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all
know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social
development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists
in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and
proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa,
raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that
Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science
against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe
might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
― Winston S. Churchill, The River War
― Winston S. Churchill, The River War
“There are all kinds of silences and each of them means a
different thing. There is the silence that comes with morning in a
forest, and this is different from the silence of a sleeping city. There
is silence after a rainstorm, and before a rainstorm, and these are not
the same. There is the silence of emptiness, the silence of fear, the
silence of doubt. There is a certain silence that can emanate from a
lifeless object as from a chair lately used, or from a piano with old
dust upon its keys, or from anything that has answered to the need of a
man, for pleasure or for work. This kind of silence can speak. Its voice
may be melancholy, but it is not always so; for the chair may have been
left by a laughing child or the last notes of the piano may have been
raucous and gay. Whatever the mood or the circumstance, the essence of
its quality may linger in the silence that follows. It is a soundless
echo.”
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night
― Beryl Markham, West with the Night
“During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of
the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have
fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a
democratic and free society in which all persons live together in
harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to
live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am
prepared to die.”
― Nelson Mandela
― Nelson Mandela
“Last year I built a Courage Machine, but I thought it might be
noisy and was too afraid to turn it on. So I coated it with glue,
covered it with cat hair, mounted it on my wall, and started claiming it
was an exotic animal I killed on a Safari in Africa. I'd like to
believe people believe me, on account of it being so strange that it has
to be true.”
― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale
― Jarod Kintz, This Book is Not for Sale
“If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new
moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces
of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over
the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent
a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the
gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong
Hills look out for me?”
― Karen Blixen
― Karen Blixen
“I have loved no part of the world like this and I have loved no
women as I love you. You're my human Africa. I love your smell as I love
these smells. I love your dark bush as I love the bush here, you change
with the light as this place does, so that one all the time is loving
something different and yet the same. I want to spill myself out into
you as I want to die here.”
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
― Graham Greene, The End of the Affair
“I feel as though the cardboard box of my own reality has been
flattened and blown open. Now I can see the edge of the world.”
― Tom Hiddleston
― Tom Hiddleston
“I've never really wanted to go to Japan. Simply because I don’t
like eating fish. And I know that's very popular out there in Africa.”
― Britney Spears
― Britney Spears
“Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that's the
inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him
not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand
too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him
not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing. Nor give too
much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him if he
gives too much.”
― Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country
― Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country
“Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing.”
― Barry Finlay, Kilimanjaro and Beyond
― Barry Finlay, Kilimanjaro and Beyond
“No other continent has endured such an unspeakably bizarre combination of foreign thievery and foreign goodwill.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
― Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible
“They say that somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret
grave where they go to lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray bodies,
and soar away, light spirits at the end.”
― Robert McCammon, Boy's Life
― Robert McCammon, Boy's Life
“We pull on to the road, where our only company are the wandering
cattle, who have become commonplace as traffic lights. Lethargic and
listless, they look like they've been roaming the roads of Guinea since
the dawn of time. And no doubt they will continue to long after we're
gone.”
― Tom Hiddleston
― Tom Hiddleston
“The worst thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of our past.”
― Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
― Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
“I don't fancy colors of the face, I'm always attracted to colors of the brain.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson
― Michael Bassey Johnson
“Except for the sound of the rain, on the road, on the roofs, on
the umbrella, there was absolute silence: only the dying moan of the
sirens continued for a moment or two to vibrate within the ear. It
seemed to Scobie later that this was the ultimate border he had reached
in happiness: being in darkness, alone, with the rain falling, without
love or pity.”
― Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
― Graham Greene, The Heart of the Matter
“You learn not to mourn every little thing out here, or you’d never, ever stop grieving.”
― Alexandra Fuller, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
― Alexandra Fuller, Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness
“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.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson
“I feel to that the gap between my new life in New York and the
situation at home in Africa is stretching into a gulf, as Zimbabwe
spirals downwards into a violent dictatorship. My head bulges with the
effort to contain both worlds. When I am back in New York, Africa
immediately seems fantastical – a wildly plumaged bird, as exotic as it
is unlikely.
Most of us struggle in life to maintain the illusion of control, but in Africa that illusion is almost impossible to maintain. I always have the sense there that there is no equilibrium, that everything perpetually teeters on the brink of some dramatic change, that society constantly stands poised for some spasm, some tsunami in which you can do nothing but hope to bob up to the surface and not be sucked out into a dark and hungry sea. The origin of my permanent sense of unease, my general foreboding, is probably the fact that I have lived through just such change, such a sudden and violent upending of value systems.
In my part of Africa, death is never far away. With more Zimbabweans dying in their early thirties now, mortality has a seat at every table. The urgent, tugging winds themselves seem to whisper the message, memento mori, you too shall die. In Africa, you do not view death from the auditorium of life, as a spectator, but from the edge of the stage, waiting only for your cue. You feel perishable, temporary, transient. You feel mortal.
Maybe that is why you seem to live more vividly in Africa. The drama of life there is amplified by its constant proximity to death. That’s what infuses it with tension. It is the essence of its tragedy too. People love harder there. Love is the way that life forgets that it is terminal. Love is life’s alibi in the face of death.
For me, the illusion of control is much easier to maintain in England or America. In this temperate world, I feel more secure, as if change will only happen incrementally, in manageable, finely calibrated, bite-sized portions. There is a sense of continuity threaded through it all: the anchor of history, the tangible presence of antiquity, of buildings, of institutions. You live in the expectation of reaching old age.
At least you used to.
But on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, those two states of mind converge. Suddenly it feels like I am back in Africa, where things can be taken away from you at random, in a single violent stroke, as quick as the whip of a snake’s head. Where tumult is raised with an abruptness that is as breathtaking as the violence itself. ”
― Peter Godwin, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
Most of us struggle in life to maintain the illusion of control, but in Africa that illusion is almost impossible to maintain. I always have the sense there that there is no equilibrium, that everything perpetually teeters on the brink of some dramatic change, that society constantly stands poised for some spasm, some tsunami in which you can do nothing but hope to bob up to the surface and not be sucked out into a dark and hungry sea. The origin of my permanent sense of unease, my general foreboding, is probably the fact that I have lived through just such change, such a sudden and violent upending of value systems.
In my part of Africa, death is never far away. With more Zimbabweans dying in their early thirties now, mortality has a seat at every table. The urgent, tugging winds themselves seem to whisper the message, memento mori, you too shall die. In Africa, you do not view death from the auditorium of life, as a spectator, but from the edge of the stage, waiting only for your cue. You feel perishable, temporary, transient. You feel mortal.
Maybe that is why you seem to live more vividly in Africa. The drama of life there is amplified by its constant proximity to death. That’s what infuses it with tension. It is the essence of its tragedy too. People love harder there. Love is the way that life forgets that it is terminal. Love is life’s alibi in the face of death.
For me, the illusion of control is much easier to maintain in England or America. In this temperate world, I feel more secure, as if change will only happen incrementally, in manageable, finely calibrated, bite-sized portions. There is a sense of continuity threaded through it all: the anchor of history, the tangible presence of antiquity, of buildings, of institutions. You live in the expectation of reaching old age.
At least you used to.
But on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, those two states of mind converge. Suddenly it feels like I am back in Africa, where things can be taken away from you at random, in a single violent stroke, as quick as the whip of a snake’s head. Where tumult is raised with an abruptness that is as breathtaking as the violence itself. ”
― Peter Godwin, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa
“In Kilanga, people knew nothing of things they might have had - a
Frigidaire? a washer-dryer combination? Really, they'd sooner imagine a
tree that could pull up its feet and go bake bread. It didn't occur to
them to feel sorry for themselves.”
― Barbara Kingsolver
― Barbara Kingsolver
“The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a
separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the
greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say
'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does
not exist.”
― Ryszard Kapuściński, The Cobra's Heart
― Ryszard Kapuściński, The Cobra's Heart
“To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude
towards Afrika becomes more positive, your understanding of and attitude
towards yourself will also becomes more positive...”
― Malcolm X
― Malcolm X
“What do you want with these special Jewish pains? I feel as close
to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putamayo and the
blacks of Africa with whose bodies the Europeans play ball… I have no
special corner in my heart for the ghetto: I am at home in the entire
world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.”
― Rosa Luxemburg
― Rosa Luxemburg
“It [is] that courage that Africa most desperately needs.”
― Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
― Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
“Should I, too, prefer the title of 'non-Jewish Jew'? For some
time, I would have identified myself strongly with the attitude
expressed by Rosa Luxemburg, writing from prison in 1917 to her
anguished friend Mathilde Wurm:
An inordinate proportion of the Marxists I have known would probably have formulated their own views in much the same way. It was almost a point of honor not to engage in 'thinking with the blood,' to borrow a notable phrase from D.H. Lawrence, and to immerse Jewishness in other and wider struggles. Indeed, the old canard about 'rootless cosmopolitanism' finds a perverse sort of endorsement in Jewish internationalism: the more emphatically somebody stresses that sort of rhetoric about the suffering of others, the more likely I would be to assume that the speaker was a Jew. Does this mean that I think there are Jewish 'characteristics'? Yes, I think it must mean that.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
What do you want with these special Jewish pains? I feel as close to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations in Putamayo and the blacks of Africa with whose bodies the Europeans play ball… I have no special corner in my heart for the ghetto: I am at home in the entire world, where there are clouds and birds and human tears.
An inordinate proportion of the Marxists I have known would probably have formulated their own views in much the same way. It was almost a point of honor not to engage in 'thinking with the blood,' to borrow a notable phrase from D.H. Lawrence, and to immerse Jewishness in other and wider struggles. Indeed, the old canard about 'rootless cosmopolitanism' finds a perverse sort of endorsement in Jewish internationalism: the more emphatically somebody stresses that sort of rhetoric about the suffering of others, the more likely I would be to assume that the speaker was a Jew. Does this mean that I think there are Jewish 'characteristics'? Yes, I think it must mean that.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
“Les personnages de nos autres vies sont des fantômes que la littérature fait revivre.”
― Olivier Weber
― Olivier Weber
“It is the duty of youths to war against indiscipline and corruption because they are the leaders of tomorrow.”
― Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
― Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha
“I admire the Stanley Cup. I’ll bet winning it could provide enough clean water for half of Africa (the middle half).”
― Jarod Kintz, At even one penny, this book would be overpriced. In fact, free is too expensive, because you'd still waste time by reading it.
― Jarod Kintz, At even one penny, this book would be overpriced. In fact, free is too expensive, because you'd still waste time by reading it.
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