African Quotes

Quotes from African writers, leaders and thinkers — cited to a published source wherever one is known. 269 in the archive.

• Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.South Africa
• It's heavy, but I am able to carry it. Why? Because I'm an African woman. An African woman carries heavy loads anyway. That's how we are trained; we are brought up that nothing is unbearable. I use that now, positively. I use that now to have the thick skin that I have, and not fear, and move forward, and push; and push forward.Malawi
• Thousands of years ago, civilizations flourished in Africa which suffer not at all by comparison with those of other continents. In those centuries, Africans were politically free and economically independent. Their social patterns were their own and their cultures truly indigenous.Ethiopia
• Rich man's dog gets more in way of medical care than do the workers upon whom the rich man's wealth is built.Mozambique
• In moments of danger, when women emerge by their side, men utter no protest. Yet…men refuse to see the capabilities of women.Egypt
• Leadership does not mean domination. The world is always well supplied with people who wish to rule and dominate others.Ethiopia
• One's own self-worth is tied to the worth of the community to which one belongs, which is intimately connected to humanity in general. What happens in Darfur becomes an assault on my own community, and on me as an individual. That's what the human family is all about.Nigeria
• Shakespeare is absolutely big in Africa. I guess he's big everywhere. Growing up, Shakespeare was the thing. You'd learn monologues and you'd recite them. And just like hip-hop, it made you feel like you knew how to speak English really well. You had a mastery of the English language to some extent.Sierra Leone
• One has to look at my life story to see what I've done. I've paid a heavy price that many people don't realize.Liberia
• The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.Liberia
• They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?.Cuba
• Some say that AIDS came from the monkeys, and I doubt that because we have been living with monkeys from time immemorial, others say it was a curse from God, but I say it cannot be that.Kenya
• I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.Nigeria
• Rwanda, which is one of the younger independent states in Africa, must be regarded as a model of how great human trauma can be transformed to commence true reconstruction of people. Human trauma can lead to stunted growth and mass withdrawal.Nigeria
• My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.Nigeria
• All of Africa's resources should be declared resources of the state and managed by the nation. Our experience in Bolivia shows that when you take control of natural resources for the people of the town and village, major world change is possible.Bolivia
• There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.South Africa
• Stories serve the purpose of consolidating whatever gains people or their leaders have made or imagine they have made in their existing journey thorough the world.Nigeria
• When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.Nigeria
• If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.South Africa
• There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenceless people.South Africa
• When a tree grows taller and taller in the forest, it reaches a height where in order to stand, it must bend for support from the shorter trees.Cameroon
• Many writers can't make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I don't really know about its value to the student. I don't mean it's useless. But I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write.Nigeria
• I would love to be the African leader that steps down, that overthrows this idea of a Big Man ruler. I don't want to stay in office forever.Ethiopia