Aime Cesaire Quotes & Sayings

Like the scorpion's question mark
drawn in the pollen on the canvas of the sky and of our brains at midnight — Aime Cesaire

Beware, my body and my soul, beware above all of crossing your arms and assuming the sterile attitude of the spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of griefs is not a proscenium, and a man who wails is not a dancing bear. — Aime Cesaire

When I turn on my radio, when I hear that Negroes have been lynched in America, I say that we have been lied to: Hitler is not dead; when I turn on my radio, when I hear that Jews have been insulted, mistreated, persecuted, I say that we have been lied to: Hitler is not dead; when, finally, I turn on my radio and hear that in Africa forced labor has been inaugurated and legalized, I say that we have certainly been lied to: Hitler is not dead. — Aime Cesaire

It is not a dead society that we want to revive. We leave that to those who go in for exoticism. — Aime Cesaire

I would rediscover the secret of great communications and great combustions. I would say storm. I would say river. I would say tornado. I would say leaf. I would say tree. I would be drenched by all rains, moistened by all dews. I would roll like frenetic blood on the slow current of the eye of words turned into mad horses into fresh children into clots into curfew into vestiges of temples into precious stones remote enough to discourage miners. Whoever would not understand me would not understand any better the roaring of a tiger. — Aime Cesaire

And if all I know how to do is speak, it is for you that I shall speak. My lips shall speak for miseries that have no mouth, my voice shall be the liberty of those who languish in the dungeon of despair ... And above all my body as well as my soul, beware of folding your arms in the sterile attitude of spectator, for life is not a spectacle, for a sea of pain is not a proscenium. — Aime Cesaire

In the whole world no poor devil is lynched, no wretch is tortured, in whom I too am not degraded and murdered. — Aime Cesaire

Alas! There's no one in hell ... all the devils are here! — Aime Cesaire

In fact, you could say that I became a poet by renouncing poetry. — Aime Cesaire

There are a whole lot of things
whose names I do not know
and I'd like to tell you about them
in the sky your hair solemnly draws away
kinds of rain one no longer sees
nuts Saint Elmo's fire
sun lames whispered nights
cathedrals too
which are the carcasses
of large gnawed horses
spat by the sea from far away
but still worshiped by people
a whole lot of forgotten things
a whole lot of dreamed things — Aime Cesaire

The thick stream of air hauled toward the summits
first the great horses of noise reared against the sky
then sluggishly the great limp octopus of smoke
a derisory spitter injecting the night with
the insolent perfume of a citronella lamp
and a wind swept down on the islands
to be riddled by the suspect violence of the locusts ... — Aime Cesaire

Africa, help me to go home, carry me like an aged child in your arms. Undress me and wash me. Strip me of all of these garments, strip me as a man strips off dreams when the dawn comes ... — Aime Cesaire

And let me die suddenly, to be born again in the revelation of beauty ... And the revelation of beauty is the wisdom of the ancestors. — Aime Cesaire

What am I driving at? At this idea: that no one colonizes innocently, that no one colonizes with impunity either; that a nation which colonizes, that a civilization which justifies colonization - and therefore force - is already a sick civilization, a civilization which is morally diseased, which irresistibly, progressing from one consequence to another, one denial to another, calls for its Hitler, I mean its punishment. — Aime Cesaire

The forest remembers that the last word can only be
the flaming cry of the bird of ruins in the bowl of the storm — Aime Cesaire

Even then Communists would reproach me for speaking of the Negro problem - they called it my racism. But I would answer: Marx is alright, but we need to complete Marx. I felt that the emancipation of the Negro consisted of more than just a political emancipation. — Aime Cesaire

Out of the sky, the birds, the parrots, the bells, silk, cloth, and drums, out of Sundays dancing, children's words and love words, out of love for the little fists of children, I will build a world, my world with round shoulders. — Aime Cesaire

There are people, even today, who thought and still think that it is all simply a matter of the left taking power in France, that with a change in the economic conditions the black question will disappear. I think that the economic question is important, but it is not the only thing. — Aime Cesaire

Your face
like a village asleep at the bottom of a lake
which is reborn to daylight from the grass and from the year
germinates — Aime Cesaire

Whether one likes it or not, the bourgeoisie, as a class, is condemned to take responsibility for all the barbarism of history, the tortures of the Middle Ages and the Inquisition, warmongering and the appeal to the raison d'Etat, racism and slavery, in short everything against which it protested in unforgettable terms at the time when, as the attacking class, it was the incarnation of human progress. — Aime Cesaire

It's neither Marxism nor Communism I repudiate; the use certain people have made of Marxism and Communism is what I condemn. What I want is that Marxism and Communism be harnessed into the service of coloured peoples, and not coloured people into the service of Marxism and Communism. That the doctrine and the movement be tailored to fit men, not men to fit the movement. And - of course - that goes for others besides Communists. — Aime Cesaire

Beware of crossing your arms in the sterile attitude of the spectator, because life is not a spectacle, because a a sea of sorrows is not a proscenium, because a man who screams is not a dancing bear. — Aime Cesaire

I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out. — Aime Cesaire

Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa. — Aime Cesaire

I have a different idea of a universal. It is of a universal rich with all that is particular, rich with all the particulars there are, the deepening of each particular, the coexistence of them all. — Aime Cesaire

Prospero, you are the master of illusion.
Lying is your trademark.
And you have lied so much to me
(Lied about the world, lied about me)
That you have ended by imposing on me
An image of myself.
Underdeveloped, you brand me, inferior,
That s the way you have forced me to see myself
I detest that image! What's more, it's a lie!
But now I know you, you old cancer,
And I know myself as well. — Aime Cesaire

Measured by the clock click of the serpent-minute
the explosion
after which it is proper to appreciate that
the brutal fist of the terrorist crack of dawn has just
planted at the top of the most forgotten poui
its adornment of fire
its dolmen of blood
its flag of rage and renewal — Aime Cesaire

Communism has served us ill in having us swap a living brotherhood for what looks to have the features of the coldest of all chill abstractions. — Aime Cesaire

Reason, I sacrifice you to the evening breeze. — Aime Cesaire

Do not make me into that man of hatred for whom I feel only hatred. — Aime Cesaire

Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge. — Aime Cesaire

It is no use painting the foot of the tree white, the strength of the bark cries out from beneath the paint. — Aime Cesaire

A civilization that proves incapable of solving the problems it creates is a decadent civilization.
A civilization that chooses to close its eyes to its most crucial problems is a stricken civilization.
A civilization that uses its principles for trickery and deceit is a dying civilization. — Aime Cesaire

A man screaming is not a dancing bear. Life is not a spectacle. — Aime Cesaire

Culture is everything. Culture is the way we dress, the way we carry our heads, the way we walk, the way we tie our ties - it is not only the fact of writing books or building houses. — Aime Cesaire

There's room for everyone at the rendezvous of victory. — Aime Cesaire

The weakness of most men
they do not know how to become a stone or tree. — Aime Cesaire