Famous Quotes & Sayings

George Ayittey

The reason why Botswana has done very well is because it's the only black African country which went back to its roots and built upon its own indigenous institutions.

George Ayittey

What you and I understand as a government doesn't exist in many African countries. In fact, what we call our governments are vampire states. Vampires because they suck the economic vitality out of their people. Government is the problem in Africa.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I realized that I was African when I came to the United States. Whenever Africa came up in my college classes, everyone turned to me. It didn't matter whether the subject was Namibia or Egypt; I was expected to know, to explain.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in 'real' African culture, before it was tainted by the West, gender roles were rigid and women were contentedly oppressed.

David Bailey

It's not about composition. It's the way you feel about how your objects should relate to each other. I've got lots of African statues and things, and the cleaner arranges them like soldiers, which drives me mad. So I have to rearrange them, and I must drive her mad, because I'm doing anarchy and she's doing military manoeuvres.

This targeting of AU personnel contravenes the status of the African mission as an independent third-party, strongly supported by the U.N. Security Council,

Michael Wolff

This summer I actually had the opportunity to play at Royal Albert Hall in London with my band, Bobby McFerrin and The African Children's Choir. There were over 6,000 people sitting in the audience with another 900 people standing. It was the most exciting experience, just totally amazing.

Kofi Annan

There has been no progress in ameliorating the contention between leaders of the transitional federal institutions on four broad issues: the relocation of the transitional federal institutions, a national security and stabilization plan, national reconciliation and the peace support mission envisaged by the African Union/Intergovernmental Authority on Development,

Cass Sunstein

Why should we be governed by people long dead? ... In any case, the group that ratified the Constitution included just a small subset of the society; it excluded all women, the vast majority of African Americans, many of those without property, and numerous others who were not permitted to vote.

Jared Diamond

why, for instance, only 2 per cent of Europeans contract the disease as opposed to 13 per cent of African Americans, 17 per cent of U.S. Latinos and up to 50 per cent of Native Americans

Jesse Jackson

Why are there no African Americans in that circle? ... How can blacks be left out of the leadership and trapped into the suffering?

Jesse Jackson

Why are there no African Americans in that circle?

Henning Mankell

Too often we learn everything about how an African dies, but nothing about how he lives. But they learn and live and love and dream just like we do. That's not to say there are not a hell of a lot of problems in Africa. But there is also another side to that story.

Thomas Jefferson called the Barbary States 'petty powers' and declared they were no match for the new America, but the pirates commissioned by these North African states managed to stop American shipping and commerce cold.

Joe Thompson

When I was born in the 40's this was one of the prime African American neighborhoods in Lufkin. At that time all of the people who lived on that street were professionals.

Coleman Young

You can't look forward and backward...

We believe that African football is among the best in the world and very much characterized the Puma brand mentality, which is to win.

Damian Marley

You say 'African music' and you think 'tribal drumming.' But there's a lot of African music that's like James Brown, and a lot, too, that sounds very Hispanic.

Isaac Hayes

I first heard African drum rhythms and chants at the movies. Then, when I had the opportunity to go to Africa and visit the villages, I heard the real, raw, true rhythms and realised the origins of the old Negro spirituals I grew up with in the South.

Isaiah Washington

I only became an actor to get your attention, to challenge the archetype of an African American male; I can't be anything else in this lifetime than an African American man.

With a technical capacity equal to our other European recovery labs, the French location will be able to provide enhanced service to customers in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and all French-speaking African countries.

Elliott Abrams

The question was never whether the United States, E.U., NATO, Arab League, U.N. Security Council, and African Union could together using economic sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and military attacks to bring Qaddafi down. The question was always how much time, how much blood, and what damage to NATO.

Don Lemon

I think young people don't really know that much about the Civil Rights Movement and about the history of African Americans in this country. It's not taught enough in school.

Cindy Sheehan

I think that there are some people on the so-called Left who might say we have to circle our wagons around the first African American president, and to me that is racism in reverse because his policies are actually still the racist policies of empire.

When African-Americans come to France, the French show them more consideration than they would show an African or a Black Caribbean. When African-Americans come to France, the French people are like, 'Oh, wow. Oh my God.' But if it's an African, they're like, 'Whatever.' It's all because of the past, because of our history.

Hill Harper

When it comes to African Americans and African American actors, Hollywood has always felt that if you can make us laugh, that's fine, but we don't need to see you do a 'Schindler's List,' where there's no jokes or music or comedic through-line.

Michael Johns

With a foreign policy appropriately rooted in some sense of humanitarian decency, the Central African crisis will not be easily ignored by American policymakers. It screams for remedy.

Roz Chast

I have an African gray parrot; her name is Eli. We thought she was a boy. And a blue-streaked lory named Marco. He's 10. And a yellow and green parakeet, Petey. He's very cute, but he's getting old.

Queen Rania of Jordan

Perhaps if we all subscribed to the African concept of Ubuntu - that we all become people through other people, and that we cannot be fully human alone, we could learn a lot. There'd be less hatred and more harmony.

Finding Martha's Vineyard: African Americans at Home on an Island.

But since the last quarter of the year, we are witnessing a marked deterioration, with both parties, both rebels and the government, involved in outright breaches of the ceasefire agreement, including attacks against the African Union itself and attacks against internally displaced persons.

Alex Berenson

African runners regularly work out in the United States and Europe, and the International Olympic Committee sends some of the cash from the Games to Olympic committees in poor nations, which use the money to finance their own programs.

Peter Abrahams

Positive social awareness among the South African educated half-caste is zero. Teaching is a mechanical job. The best way of earning a living.