Great Throughts Treasury

"Despair is the one sin that cannot be forgiven."

"The whole world, motivated by different reasons and expectations… But we, the leaders, chose to flirt with the molten god, a blind, deaf monster who has plagued us for hundreds of years."

"Time and bad conditions do not favour beauty."

"A mother's silence is the worst form of punishment for it is left to one's imagination to conjure up what is in her mind."

"In writing one should hear all the whisperings, all the shouting, all the crying, all the loving and all the hating of the many voices in the past, and those voices will never speak to a writer in a foreign language."

"For too long development has been measured by the point of view of those at the top of the mountain, and my position has always been and still will be that development must be viewed at the stand point of those who are at the bottom of the mountain. Because when you are at the top of the mountain your view is very different from that of the person who is at the bottom of the mountain. But what you call progress or economic progress often means the progress of a few socio classes. It does not necessarily mean the economic betterment and the socio-betterment of the person who is at the bottom of the mountain. This applies to Kenya, this applies to America, it applies to how I look at the world myself. Because those who are on top of the mountain are climbing on the shoulders of those who are at the bottom of the mountain"

"Our lives are a battlefield on which is fought a continuous war between the forces that are pledged to confirm our humanity and those determined to dismantle it; those who strive to build a protective wall around it, and those who wish to pull it down; those who seek to mould it and those committed to breaking it up; those who aim to open our eyes, to make us see the light and look to tomorrow [...] and those who wish to lull us into closing our eyes."

"Perhaps it is myth as much as fact that keeps dreams alive in times of war."

"A fool, in the town's vocabulary, meant a man who had a wife who would not let him leave her lap even for a second."

"All white people stick together. But we black people are very divided."

"Aaa! You could never tell what these people would do. In spite of the fact that they were all white, they killed one another with poison, fire and big bombs that destroyed the land."

"A white man is a white man. But a black man trying to be white man is bad and rash."

"Any man who had land was considered rich. If a man had plenty of money, many motor cars, but no land, he could never be counted as rich. A man who went with tattered clothes but had at least an acre of red earth was better off than the man with money."

"As she stared at them, Waringa noted that their skins were indeed red, like that of pigs or like the skin of a black person who has been scalded with boiling water or who has burned himself with acid creams. Even the hair in their arms and necks stood out stiff and straight like the bristle of an aging hog."

"Besides do you really think you'll be safer at home? I tell you there's no safety anywhere. There's no hiding in this naked land."

"'Blackness is not all that makes a man,' Kamau said bitterly. 'There are some people, be they black or white, who don't want others to rise above them. They want to be the source of all knowledge and share it piecemeal to others less endowed. ... A rich man does not want others to get rich because he wants to be the only man with wealth.?"

"Color bar was everywhere. Rich Africans could also practice color bar on the poorer Africans."

"Don't worry about me. Everything will be all right. Get education, I'll get carpentry. Then we shall, in the future, be able to have a new and better home for the whole family."

"But when did this anger take root? When snakes first appeared on the national scene? When water in the bowels of the earth turned bitter? Or when he visited America and failed to land an interview with Global Network News on its famous program Meet the Global Mighty? It is said that when he was told that he could not be granted even a minute on the air, he could hardly believe his ears or even understand what they were talking about, knowing that in his country he was always on TV; his every moment - eating, shitting, sneezing, or blowing his nose - captured on camera."

"For I had reached a point in my life when I came to view words differently. A closer look at language could reveal the secret of life."

"Education was good only because it would lead to the recovery of the lost lands."

"Does rough weather choose men over women? Does the sun beat on men, leaving women nice and cool?' Nyawira asked rather sharply. 'Women bear the brunt of poverty. What choices does a woman have in life, especially in times of misery? She can marry or live with a man. She can bear children and bring them up, and be abused by her man. Have you read Buchi Emecheta of Nigeria, Joys of Motherhood? Tsitsi Dangarembga of Zimbabwe, say, Nervous Conditions? Miriama Ba of Senegal, So Long A Letter? Three women from different parts of Africa, giving words to similar thoughts about the condition of women in Africa.' 'I am not much of a reader of fiction,' Kamiti said. 'Especially novels by African women. In India such books are hard to find.' 'Surely even in India there are women writers? Indian women writers?' Nyawira pressed. 'Arundhati Roy, for instance, The God of Small Things? Meena Alexander, Fault Lines? Susie Tharu. Read Women Writing in India. Or her other book, We Were Making History, about women in the struggle!' 'I have sampled the epics of Indian literature,' Kamiti said, trying to redeem himself. 'Mahabharata, Ramayana, and mostly Bhagavad Gita. There are a few others, what they call Purana, Rig-Veda, Upanishads ? Not that I read everything, but ?' 'I am sure that those epics and Puranas, even the Gita, were all written by men,' Nyawira said. 'The same men who invented the caste system. When will you learn to listen to the voices of women?"

"In any case how many took the oath and are now licking the toes of the whiteman?No, you take an oath to confirm a choice already made. The decision to lay or not lay your life for the people lies in the heart. The oath is the water sprinkled on a man's head at baptism"

"Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful."

"If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can't buy it."

"Our fathers fought bravely. But do you know the biggest weapon unleashed by the enemy against them? It was not the Maxim gun. It was division among them. Why? Because a people united in faith are stronger than the bomb"

"Our people think: I, Wangari, a Kenyan by birth - how can I be a vagrant in my own country as if I were a foreigner."

"The condition of women in a nation is the real measure of its progress."

"That?s why you at times hear Father say that he would rather work for a white man. A white man is a white man. But a black man trying to be a white man is bad and harsh."

"Unless you kill, you'll be killed. So you go on killing and destroying. It's a law of nature."

"With me, it is 'better never than late."

"The African Union may be a shadow of the original post-colonial vision. But its potential to inspire remains."

"What Waringa tried hard to avoid was looking at the pictures of the walls and windows of the church. Many of the pictures showed Jesus in the arms of the virgin Mary or on the cross. But others depicted the devil, with two cow-like horns and a tail like a monkey's, raising one leg in a dance of evil, while his angels, armed with burning pitchforks, turned over human beings on a bonfire. The Virgin Mary, Jesus and God's angels were white, like European, but the devil and his angels were black."

"Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa's souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind? How could Europe lord it over a continent ten times its size? Why does needy Africa continue to let its wealth meet the needs of those outside its borders and then follow behind with hands outstretched for a loan of the very wealth it let go? How did we arrive at this, that the best leader is the one that knows how to beg for a share of what he has already given away at the price of a broken tool? Where is the future of Africa?"

"Yes. Sunshine always follows a dark night. We sleep knowing and trusting that the sun will rise tomorrow."

"Written words can also sing."