The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us.

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.

There is no foreign land; it is the traveler only that is foreign.

Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.

Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.

The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.

France has neither winter, summer, nor morals—apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.

When the missionaries first came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.

I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.