French Colonial Quotes & Sayings

Most correspondents came from the former colonial powers - there were British, French, and a lot of Italians, because there were a lot of Italian communities there. And of course there were a lot of Russians. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

British and Free French in the Mediterranean were fighting to retain their colonial empires. Roosevelt said he hoped to — Stephen E. Ambrose

Whole villages of Muslims had been hacked to pieces by drunken Christian youth, and as foreigners, we should have been pulled out by the organization. But the U.S. government supported the Christian tribes, just as the French had all through the colonial days, and to pull us out would have meant admitting that things weren't as stable for their puppet government as the western companies, trading in Ivory Coast for cocoa, rubber, and timber, and selling Coke and cigarettes, wanted to hear. — Tony D'Souza

Not one of our political spokespeople - the same is true of the Arabs since Abdel Nasser's time - ever speaks with self-respect and dignity of what we are, what we want, what we have done, and where we want to go. In the 1956 Suez War, the French colonial war against Algeria, the Israeli wars of occupation and dispossession, and the campaign against Iraq, a war whose stated purpose was to topple a specific regime but whose real goal was the devastation of the most powerful Arab country. And just as the French, British, Israeli, and American campaign against Gamal Abdel Nasser was designed to bring down a force that openly stated as its ambition the unification of the Arabs into a very powerful independent political force. — Edward W. Said

When World War II erupted, colonialism was at its apogee. The courde of the war, however, its symbolic undertones, would sow the seeds of the system's defeat and demise. [ ... ] The central subject, the essence, the core relations between Europeans and Africans during the colonial era, was the difference of race, of skin color. Everything-each eaxchange, connection, conflict-was translated into the language of black and white. [ ... ] Into the African was inculcated the notion that the white man was untouchable, unconquerable, that whites constitute a homogenous, cohesive force. [ ... ] Then, suddenly, Africans recruited into the British and French armies in Europe observed that the white men were fighting one another, shooting one another, destroying one another's cities. It was revelation, a surprise, a shock. — Ryszard Kapuscinski

After all, in both languages we were dealing in large measure not with English and French, but with Scots and Irish, Bretons and Normans ... There could be no more eloquent illustration of the colonial mind-set than a bunch of Celts and Vikings in a distant northern territory insulting each other as les Anglais and the French as if they were the descendants of the people who had subjected and ruined them. — John Ralston Saul

Christ, being man, had to see impurity and denounced it; but God, infinitely higher, does not see iniquity and cannot be angry. — Swami Vivekananda

Fair Venus shines Even in the eve of day, with sweetest beam Propitious shines, and shakes a trembling flood Of softened radiance from her dewy locks. — Anna Letitia Barbauld

After the French Revolution, the world money power shifted from Paris to London. For three generations, the British maintained an old-fashioned colonial empire, as well as a modern empire based on London's primacy in the money markets. — Gore Vidal

The earthquake in Haiti was a class-based catastrophe. It didn't much harm the wealthy elite up in the hills, they were shaken but not destroyed. On the other hand the people who were living in the miserable urban slums, huge numbers of them, they were devastated. Maybe a couple hundred thousand were killed. How come they were living there? They were living there because of-it goes back to the French colonial system-but in the past century, they were living there because of US policies, consistent policies. — Noam Chomsky

I got a very late start at fatherhood. I'm a late bloomer in general. It took me seven years to get through four years of college. I was five years away from 40 before I had a family, and I had never been around kids much at all. All of a sudden, I was around three boys all the time. — Rick Yancey

You occupied my space. But because you were not in my present, when I looked into my future I saw ... nothing. Isn't that sad? And stupid? — Jerry Spinelli

There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time. — Jane Austen

Like a drop in the ocean, so a single person carries within themselves the universe surrounding them. — Terez Virag

The prime minister is a Labour Tory. There's a mosque at the end of your street and a French restaurant next door. We are neither in nor out of Europe. We are famous for our beer but we drink in wine bars. We are not a colonial power but we still have a commonwealth. We are jealous of the rich but we buy into the Hello! celebrity culture. We live in a United Kingdom that's no longer united. We are muddled. — Jeremy Clarkson

His rule of thumb, after a walk, is to drink water until he begins to urinate again. Then he can consider other activities. — Neal Stephenson

Savannah is amazing with the town squares and the hanging moss and the French Colonial houses. It's brutally romantic. — David Morrissey

Grown-ups get lonely at night, and they like to have someone to sleep with. Like Mom and Daddy do. I have my bear," she continued, referring to her favorite stuffed animal. "So I don't get lonely. — Nora Roberts

A day or two after my love pronouncement, now feral with vulnerability, I sent you the passage from Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes in which Barthes describes how the subject who utters the phrase "I love you" is like "the Argonaut renewing his ship during its voyage without changing its name." Just as the Argo's parts may be replaced over time but the boat is still called the Argo, whenever the lover utters the phrase "I love you," its meaning must be renewed by each use, as "the very task of love and of language is to give to one and the same phrase inflections which will be forever new. — Maggie Nelson

Some colonies were even reputed as being paradises of homosexual debauchery. Indeed, in French, faire passer son brevet colonial, that is, to take one's colonial certificate, mean initiating a young recruit to sodomy, that is, intercourse ,i per anum during which the noviciate would play the role of the insertee. — Chantal Zabus

While Haiti has recently celebrated more than 200 years of independence from French colonial rule, the citizens of the island remain vulnerable to poverty, poor health, and political chaos. — Eliot Engel

That still did not invalidate their purity in his eyes, so long as they continued to live the way they lived: sitting on the floor, eating with their fingers, cooking and sleeping first in one room, then in another, or in the vast patio with its fountains, or on the roof, leading the existence of nomads inside the beautiful shell which was the house. If he had felt that they were capable of discarding their utter preoccupation with the present, in order to consider the time not yet arrived, he would straightway have lost interest in them and condemned them as corrupt. — Paul Bowles

I think it's fair to say that I don't pick up languages. If anything, I roll around in them gracelessly and pray that something sticks. — Elizabeth Little

It's a good thing when you don't dare do something if you don't think it's right. But it's not good when you think something's not right because you don't dare do it. — Sigrid Undset

I remember how Talia got me to talk about the gardening thing. I've never told anyone else about that, but with this girl, I sort of feel like I can be myself without worrying about looking uncool. After all, she doesn't even know what "cool" is. — Alex Flinn

Ouch,' my dad says in mock hurt. 'Right in the heart, Lil'
'Its the only place I can reach,' she refutes.
'I'm not sure about that...' Their voices soften. Too quiet. Which means they're lip-locked.
'Mom! Dad!' I shout, and Farrow and I reach the base of the stairs first. — Krista Ritchie

During the Fifties, political and military activities in Vietnam were heavily influenced by the French, who as recent colonial masters, made all-important decisions. — Nguyen Cao Ky

Our knees get dusty from time to time, but when they touch the ground, we must never allow the dust to convince us that our submission in that moment is the acceptance of our defeat for an entire lifetime. — A.J. Darkholme

I think when you're dealing with very tenuous scenes and difficult and heavy subject matter, it's important to be close intimately with your cast as friends, and be able to diffuse a lot of that tension and trust each other with the work. — Jack Falahee