African Quotes
Quotes from African writers, leaders and thinkers — cited to a published source wherever one is known. 269 in the archive.
- An artist, in my understanding of the word, should side with the people against the Emperor that oppresses his or her people.Nigeria
- As more men become more educated and women get educated, the value system has to be more enhanced and the respect for human dignity and human life is made better.Liberia
- An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.Ethiopia
- But when you have bad governance, of course, these resources are destroyed: The forests are deforested, there is illegal logging, there is soil erosion. I got pulled deeper and deeper and saw how these issues become linked to governance, to corruption, to dictatorship.Kenya
- It is better to die for an idea that will live than to live for an idea that will die.South Africa
- If you see a little bird dancing in the middle of the path, know that its drummer is hiding in the bush nearby.Nigeria
- I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa; there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there.Jamaica
- Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.Nigeria
- Nigeria has had the misfortune - no, the fortune - of seeing the worst face of capitalism anywhere in Africa. The masses have seen it, they are disgusted, and they want an alternative.Nigeria
- Once a novel gets going and I know it is viable, I don't then worry about plot or themes. These things will come in almost automatically because the characters are now pulling the story.Nigeria
- A chicken eats corn, drinks water, swallows pebbles, yet she complains of having no teeth. If she had teeth, would she eat gold? Let her ask the cow who has teeth yet eats grass.Nigeria
- If I were not African, I wonder whether it would be clear to me that Africa is a place where the people do not need limp gifts of fish but sturdy fishing rods and fair access to the pond. I wonder whether I would realize that while African nations have a failure of leadership, they also have dynamic people with agency and voices.Nigeria
- It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live.Nigeria
- The first light of human consciousness and the world's first civilizations were in Africa.United States
- Clean water and access to food are some of the simplest things that we can take for granted each and every day. In places like Africa, these can be some of the hardest resources to attain if you live in a rural area.Ethiopia
- And so I'm saying that, yes, colonialism was terrible, and I describe it as a legacy of wars, but we ought to be moving away from that by now.Kenya
- You have to realize that up until about 1959, Africa was dominated by the colonial powers. And by the colonial powers of Europe having complete control over Africa, they projected Africa always in a negative light - jungles, savages, cannibals, nothing civilized.United States
- Be confident enough to take calculated risks in order to achieve your dreams. If you win, you win and you’ll take the blessings. If you fail, you fail and you’ll take the lessons.Ghana
- When you think of all the conflicts we have - whether those conflicts are local, whether they are regional or global - these conflicts are often over the management, the distribution of resources. If these resources are very valuable, if these resources are scarce, if these resources are degraded, there is going to be competition.Kenya
- We owe it to ourselves and to the next generation to conserve the environment so that we can bequeath our children a sustainable world that benefits all.Kenya
- What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.Nigeria
- I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.South Africa
- Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.South Africa
- Each of my books is different. Deliberately... I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.Nigeria