Amilcar Cabral Quotes & Sayings

We must walk rapidly but not run. We must not be opportunists, nor allow our enthusiasms to make us lose the vision of concrete reality. — Amilcar Cabral

Educate ourselves; educate other people, the population in general, to fight fear and ignorance, to eliminate little by little the subjection to nature and natural forces which our economy has not yet mastered. — Amilcar Cabral

Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone's head. They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children ... — Amilcar Cabral

Hide nothing from the masses of our people. Tell no lies. Expose lies whenever they are told. Mask no difficulties, mistakes, failures. Claim no easy victories ... — Amilcar Cabral

The colonists usually say that it was they who brought us into history: today we show that this is not so. They made us leave history, our history, to follow them, right at the back, to follow the progress of their history. — Amilcar Cabral

We must act as if we answer to, and only answer to, our Ancestors, our children, and the unborn. — Amilcar Cabral

Always remember that the people are not fighting for ideas, nor for what is in men's minds. The people fight and accept the sacrifices demanded by the struggle in order to gain material advantages, to live better and in peace, to benefit from progress, and for the better future of their children. National liberation, the struggle against colonialism, the construction of peace, progress and independence are hollow words devoid of any significance unless they can be translated into a real improvement of living conditions. — Amilcar Cabral

A people who free themselves from foreign domination will be free culturally only if,
without complexes and without underestimating the importance of positive accretions from
oppressor and other cultures, they return to the upward paths of their own culture, which is
nourished by the living reality of its environment, and which negates both harmful influences
and any kind of subjection to foreign culture. Thus, it may be seen that if imperialist
domination has the vital need to practice cultural oppression, national liberation is necessarily
an act of culture — Amilcar Cabral

One of the most serious errors, if not the most serious error, committed by colonial powers in Africa, may have been to ignore or underestimate the cultural strength of African peoples. — Amilcar Cabral

No matter how hot the water from your well, it will not cook your rice ... — Amilcar Cabral

We are not going to eliminate imperialism by shouting insults at it. — Amilcar Cabral

We are fighting so that insults may no longer rule our countries, martyred and scorned for centuries, so that our peoples may never more be exploited by imperialists not only by people with white skin, because we do not confuse exploitation or exploiters with the colour of men's skins; we do not want any exploitation in our countries, not even by black people. — Amilcar Cabral

Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people's history and a determinant of history. — Amilcar Cabral