14 quotes
It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.
The Last Defenders of the Laager: Ian D. Smith and F.W. de Klerk (1985)
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Apartheid — both petty and grand — is obviously evil. Nothing can justify the arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.
I Write What I Like (1978)
In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift—a more human face.
I Write What I Like (1978)
This is the extent to which the process of dehumanization has advanced.
I Write What I Like (1978)
In time, we shall be in a position to bestow upon South Africa the greatest possible gift: a more human face.
We must realise that prophetic cry of black students: "Black man you are on your own!"
I Write What I Like (1978)
It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realize that the only vehicle for change is these people who have lost their personality.
The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.
You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway.
Black consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emerge from the black world for a long time.
Merely by describing yourself as black, you have started on a road towards emancipation; you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being.
We regard our living together not as an unfortunate mishap warranting the introduction of protective barriers, but as a deliberate act of God to make us a joint community of brothers and sisters jointly involved in the quest for a composite answer to the varied problems of life.
The system concedes nothing without demand, for it formulates its very method of operation on the basis that the ignorant will learn to know, the child will grow into an adult and therefore demands will begin to be made. It gears itself to resist demands in whatever way it sees fit.
I Write What I Like (1978)