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Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

74 quotes

“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.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Whiteman told of another country beyond the sea where a powerful woman sat on a throne while men and women danced under the shadow of her authority and benevolence. She was ready to spread the shadow to cover the Agikuyu. They laughed at this eccentric man whose skin had been so scalded that the black outside had peeled off. The hot water must have gone into his head.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As long as he did not know the truth, he could interpret the story in the only way that gave him hope: the coming of black rule would not mean, could never mean the end of white power.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I die for you, you die for me, we become a sacrifice for one another. So I can say that you, Karanja, are Christ. I am Christ. Everybody who takes the Oath of Unity to change things in Kenya is Christ.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The whiteman told of another country beyond the sea where a powerful woman sat on a throne while men and women danced under the shadow of her authority and benevolence. She was ready to spread the shadow to cover the [Gikuyu]. They laughed at this eccentric man whose skin had been so scalded that the black outside had peeled off.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They looked beyond the laughing face of the whiteman and suddenly saw a long line of other red strangers who carried not the Bible, but the sword. […] The iron snake […] was quickly wriggling towards Nairobi for a thorough exploitation of the hinterland.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Mugo] had always found it difficult to make decisions. Recoiling as if by instinct from setting in motion a course of action whose consequences he could not determine before the start, he allowed himself to drift into things or be pushed into them by an uncanny demon; he rode on the wave of circumstance and lay against the crest, fearing but fascinated by fate.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“At Githima, people believed that a complaint from [Karanja] was enough to make a man lose his job. Karanja knew their fears. Often when men came into his office, he would suddenly cast them a cold eye, drop hints, or simply growl at them; in this way, he increased their fears and insecurity. But he also feared the men and alternated this fierce prose with servile friendliness.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In a flash, I was convinced that the growth of the British Empire was the development of a great moral idea: it means, it must surely lead to the creation of one British nation, embracing all peoples of all colors and creeds, based on the just proposition that all men were created equal.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Many of us talked like that because we wanted to deceive ourselves. It lessens your shame. We talked of loyalty to the Movement and the love of our country. You know a time came when I did not care about Uhuru for the country anymore. I just wanted to come home.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Unknown to those around him, Kihika’s heart hardened towards “these people,” long before he had even encountered a white face. Soldiers came back from the war and told stories of what they had seen in Burma, Egypt, Palestine and India; wasn’t Mahatma Gandhi, the saint, leading the Indian people against the British rule? Kihika fed on these stories: his imagination and daily observation told him the rest; from early on, he had visions of himself, a saint, leading Kenyan people to freedom and power.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would hate to see a train run over my mother or father, or brothers. Oh, what would I do?” [Mumbi] quickly exclaimed. “Women are cowards.” Karanja said half in joke. “Would you like a train to run over you?” Mumbi retorted angrily. Karanja felt the anger and did not answer.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Kenya we want deaths which will change things, that is to say, we want true sacrifice. But first we have to be ready to carry the cross. I die for you, you die for me, we become a sacrifice for one another. So I can say that you, Karanja, are Christ. Everybody who takes the Oath of Unity to change things in Kenya is a Christ.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gikonyo greedily sucked sour pleasure from this reflection which he saw as a terrible revelation. To live and die alone is the ultimate truth.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As for carrying a gun for the whiteman, well, a time will come when you too will know that every man in the world is alone, and fights alone, to live.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A big lump blocked Mugo’s throat. Something heaved forth; he trembled; he was at the bottom of the pool, but up there, above the pool, ran the earth; life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful; only for a moment; how dared he believe in such a vision, an illusion?”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It makes his life more interesting to himself. He invents a meaning for his life, you see. Don’t we all do that? And to die fighting for freedom sounds more heroic than to die by accident.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The man who had suffered so much had further revealed his greatness in modesty. By refusing to lead, Mugo had become a legendary hero.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“[Wambui] believed in the power of women to influence events, especially where men had failed to act, or seemed indecisive […] Let therefore such men, she jeered, come forward, wear the women’s skirts and aprons and give up their trousers to the women.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I despise the weak. Why? Because the weak need not remain weak. Listen! 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 the division amongst them. Why? Because a people united in faith are stronger than the bomb. They shall not tremble or run away before the sword.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am important. I must not die. To keep myself alive, healthy, strong—to wait for my mission in life is a duty to myself, to men and women of tomorrow. If Moses had died in the reeds, who would ever have known that he was destined to be a great man?”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Koina talked of seeing the ghosts of the colonial past still haunting Independent Kenya. And it was true that those now marching in the streets of Nairobi were not the soldiers of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army but of the King’s African Rifles, the very colonial forces who had been doing on the battlefield what Jackson was doing in churches.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cry, the Beloved Country [1948] was another Uncle Tom's Cabin [1852]- in Africa. The failure in imaginative comprehension of the African character in European fiction lies in the fact that the African is not seen in an active causal-effect relationship with a significant past.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Really, women could never understand. Women were women, whether saved or not. Their son had to be protected against all evil influences. He must be made to grow in the footsteps of the Lord. He looked at her, frowning a little. She had made him sin but that had been a long time ago. And he had been saved. John must not tread the same road.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As he watched her disappear, he felt proud that they should think well of him. He felt proud that he had a place in their esteem. And then came the pang. Father will know. They will know. He did not know what he feared most; the action his father would take when he found out, or the loss of the little faith the simple villagers had placed in him, when they knew. He feared to lose everything.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Then the white men had come, preaching a strange religion, strange ways, which all men followed. The tribe's code of behaviour was broken.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Why not marry her? She is beautiful! Why not marry? Do I love her or don't I?”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Soon everyone will know that he has created and then killed.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well – yes – no. I mean, nowhere in particular.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Look, Sister,You know I want the boy to grow in the Lord.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Stay well, Son. Go well and in peace, Mother.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Different! Different! Puu! They are all alike. Those coated with the white clay of the white man’s ways are the worst. They have nothing inside.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Who has told you that prophesy is yours alone, to keep to yourself? Why are you furnishing yourself with empty excuses? If you do that, you will never be free of tears and pleading cries.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Therefore there are two hearts: the heart built by the clan of parasites, the evil heart; and the heart built by the clan of producers, the good heart.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To the Kareendis of modern Kenya, isn't each day exactly the same as all the others? For the day on which they are born is the very day on which every part of their body is buried except one—they are left with a single organ. So when will the Kareendis of modern Kenya wipe the tears from their faces? When will they ever discover laughter?”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our people, think: I, Wangarĩ, a Kenyan by birth—how can I be a vagrant in my own country as if I were a foreigner?”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“This country, our country, is pregnant. What it will give birth to, only God knows...Imagine! the children of us workers are fated to stay out in the sun, thirsty, hungry, naked, gazing at fruit ripening on trees which they can't pick even to quieten a demanding belly! Fated to see food steaming in the pantry, but unable to dip a calabash in to the pot to scoop out even a tiny portion! Fated to lie awake all night telling each another stories about tears and sorrow, asking one another to guess the same riddle day after day: 'Oh, for a piece of one of those!'”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Gatuĩria was at least aware that the slavery of language is the slavery of the mind and nothing to be proud of.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is no difference between old and modern stories. Stories are stories. All stories are old. All stories are new. All stories belong to tomorrow. And stories are not about ogres or about animals or about men. All stories are about human beings.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You two are wrong. A thief is no worse than a witch, and a witch is no worse than a thief. A thief is a witch, and a witch is a thief. For when a thief steals your land, your house, your clothes, isn't he really killing you? And when a witch destroys your life, isn't he stealing everything you own?”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I would even say that too much education can be a form of foolishness.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is a blood relation? [...] What does it matter if people are alike or not? A child is a child. We all come from the same womb, the common womb one Kenya. The blood shed for our freedom has washed away the differences between that clan and this one, this nationality and that one. Today there is no Luo, Gĩkũyũ, Kamba, Giriama, Luhya, Maasai, Meru, Kallenjin or Turkana. We are all children of one another. Our mother is Kenya, the mother of all Kenyan people.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“African countries, as colonies and even today as neo-colonies, came to be defined and to define themselves in terms of the languages of Europe: English-speaking, French-speaking or Portuguese-speaking African countries.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Colonialism imposed its control of the social production of wealth through military conquest and subsequent political dictatorship. But its most important area of domination was the mental universe of the colonised, the control, through culture, of how people perceived themselves and their relationship to the world. Economic and political control can never be complete or effective without mental control. To control a people's culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But African languages refused to die. They would not simply go to the way of Latin to become the fossils for linguistic archaeology to dig up, classify, and argue about the international conferences.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“What is the difference between a politician who says Africa cannot do without imperialism and the writer who says Africa cannot do without European languages?”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The European missionary believed too much in his mission of conquest not to communicate it in the languages most readily available to the people: the African writer believes too much in 'African literature' to write it in those ethnic, divisive and underdeveloped languages of the peasantry!”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Africa actually enriches Europe: but Africa is made to believe that it needs Europe to rescue it from poverty. Africa's natural and human resources continue to develop Europe and America: but Africa is made to feel grateful for aid from the same quarters that still sit on the back of the continent.”
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1938–2025) said by 2025 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source