And it is clear that in the colonial countries the peasants alone are revolutionary, for they have nothing to lose and everything to gain. The starving peasant, outside the class system is the first among the exploited to discover that only violence pays. For him there is no compromise, no possible coming to terms; colonization and decolonization a simply a question of relative strength.

When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.

To speak...means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

If the building of a bridge does not enrich the awareness of those who work on it, then the bridge ought not to be built.

For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.

To educate the masses politically is to make the totality of the nation a reality to each citizen. It is to make the history of the nation part of the personal experience of each of its citizens.

I feel my soul as vast as the world, truly a soul as deep as the deepest of rivers; my chest has the power to expand to infinity. I was made to give and they prescribe for me the humility of the cripple.