You get another person who operates only in an African language and there are many persons who operate only in African languages; he or she is excluded from all the goodies that come with English.
NGUGI WA THIONG'OIf poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
More Ngugi wa Thiong'o Quotes
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They want to be the ones telling people: “This is what we have done in history” but when people begin to say, “No this is what we have done in history” it’s a different thing.
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Of course it’s very, very important for me to feel Kenya, to feel, every day, this is where images come from. So to be taken away from that by political pressure or other means – one is taken away from the area, which is the basis of inspiration – is difficult.
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There is no way we can survive as a nation in the world without finding unity.
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If poverty was to be sold three cents today, i can’t buy it.
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Seen as an economic, political, cultural, and psychological re-membering vision, it should continue to guide remembering practices
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Many people do not know that Jesus did not speak Latin or English or Hebrew; he spoke Aramaic. But nobody knows that language.
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I’m more trying to connect; I’m more listening to people. Whatever I get is very meaningful to me.
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Christianity and Western civilization-what countless crimes have been committed in thy name!
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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?
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A person who acquires English has access to all the things that that language makes possible.
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We think of politics in terms of power and who has the power. Politics is the end to which that power is put.
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Another phenomenon developing in Kenya is ethnic cleansing – and that’s the thing that has made me very sad. Because some people will use the cover of the problems of rigged elections to do things that are unacceptable like ethnic cleansing and displacement of people. It’s completely unacceptable.
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If a novel is written in a certain language with certain characters from a particular community and the story is very good or illuminating, then that work is translated into the language of another community.
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The Pan-Africanism that envisaged the ideal of wholeness was gradually cut down to the size of a continent, then a nation, a region, an ethnos, a clan, and even a village in some instances But Pan-Africanism has not outlived its mission.
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We can appreciate each other’s languages. And the question of being uncomfortable about our languages would go away.
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The Bible has affected their lives, but in translation, since they do not read the Bible in the original Greek or Hebrew.
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People went to war as a result of it and even today, every Sunday.
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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.
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Writing in African languages became a topic of discussion in conferences, in schools, in classrooms; the issue is always being raised – so it’s no longer “in the closet,” as it were. It’s part of the discussion going on about the future of African literature.
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Through the act of translation we break out of linguistic confinement and reach many other communities.
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I’m writing for those people in Kenya, but in Irvine and in New York.
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The same questions are there in Native American languages, they’re there in native Canadian languages, they’re there is some marginalized European languages, like say, Irish.
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I think a repressive regime always fears people who are awakened – particularly ordinary people. If they are awakened, I think governments all over the world feel uncomfortable about that; they want to be in control.
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Life, struggle, even amidst pain and blood and poverty, seemed beautiful.
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Why did Africa let Europe cart away millions of Africa’s souls from the continent to the four corners of the wind?
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The Bible affects everybody’s life who is a Christian, from the middle class in Europe to the peasant in Africa and Asia.
NGUGI WA THIONG'O