We, in Africa, have no more need of being ‘converted’ to socialism than we have of being ‘taught’ democracy. Both are rooted in our past – in the traditional society which produced us.
If real development is to take place, the people have to be involved.
Small nations are like indecently dressed women. They tempt the evil-minded.
There is no time to waste. We must either unite now or perish.
Independence cannot be real if a nation depends upon gifts.
No nation has the right to make decisions for another nation; no people for another people.
We spoke and acted as if, given the opportunity for self-government, we would quickly create utopias. Instead injustice, even tyranny, is rampant.
If a door is shut, attempts should be made to open it; if it is ajar, it should be pushed until it is wide open. In neither case should the door be blown up at the expense of those inside.
The greatest contraceptive one can have in the developing world is the knowledge that your children will live.
African nationalism is meaningless, dangerous, anachronistic, if it is not, at the same time, pan-Africanism.
A house should not be built so close to another that a chicken from one can lay an egg in the neighbor’s yard, nor so far away that a child cannot shout to the yard of his neighbor.
In Tanzania, it was more than one hundred tribal units which lost their freedom; it was one nation that regained it.
Take every penny you have set aside for aid for Tanzania and spend it in the UK, explaining to people the facts and causes of poverty.
Freedom to many means immediate betterment, as if by magic. Unless I can meet at least some of these aspirations, my support will wane and my head will roll just as surely as the tickbird follows the rhino.
Should we really let our people starve so we can pay our debts.
The education provided must therefore encourage the development in each citizen of three things; an inquiring mind; and ability to learn from what others do, and reject or adapt it to his own needs; and a basic confidence in his own position as a free and equal member of the society, who values others and is valued by them for what he does and not for what he obtains.
In Tanganyika we believe that only evil, Godless men would make the color of a man’s skin the criteria for granting him civil rights.
A nation which refuses to learn from foreign culture is nothing but a nation of idiots and lunatics... But to learn from other cultures does not mean we should abandon our own.
And just as, in the First Scramble for Africa, one tribe was divided against another tribe to make the division of Africa easier, in the Second Scramble for Africa one nation is going to be divided against another nation to make it easier to control Africa by making her weak and divided against herself.
Moyo kabla ya silaha.