South Africa Quotes

“Huh, not much bloody "Unitate" about this place!”

“Let us live and strive for freedom, in South Africa our land!”

“I've met the King of China and a working Yorkshire miner, but I've never met a nice South African.”

“I prefer to live in South Africa because it's a wonderful country; because I've been there for 300 years.”

“[T]here is always the possibility of change. If it happened in South Africa, why can't it happen anywhere?”

“At thy call we shall not falter, firm and steadfast we shall stand. At thy will to live or perish, o South Africa dear land!”

“My heart will always be in South Africa... made me the person that I am today. But I knew I needed another challenge for myself.”

“the South African president, Cyril Ramaphosa, had started “seizing land from his own citizens without compensation because they are the wrong skin colour””

“I'm a Christian. I'm a South African. I'm an Afrikaner. I'm a lawyer. I love my country, and I think that this country has a great future. In that sense of the word, I'm a practical idealist.”

“In South Africa, Joe Slovo, Ruth First, Albie Sachs, Nadine Gordimer, Abie Nathan, and Helen Suzman are only among the most famous of the many Jews who joined the fight to bring down apartheid.”

“A doctor in rural South Africa describes his frustration. He says, "We have no medicines. Many hospitals tell people, you've got AIDS, we can't help you. Go home and die." In an age of miraculous medicines, no person should have to hear those words.”

“When [Nelson Mandela] was in prison I admired him for his moral strength... Of his period in power I can see few results. Apartheid no longer exists, at least to all appearances, but no one understands what the new government in South Africa is doing.”

“As we coasted along two men began to run along the beach opposite us. This land is very attractive and well situated; and we saw many cattle wandering about on the land here; and the further we advanced the better did the land become and the higher the groves of trees.”

“Whenever there was a crisis in power in South Africa, one of the communities that has always got the brunt of violence has been the Indian community. Because we have been soft targets believing in non-violence. Therefore, we have become vulnerable targets to perpetrators.”

“There are powers that are trying to manipulate our country's history by trying to portray it as dark, suppressive and unfair... Yes, we have made mistakes. Yes, we have often sinned and we don't deny this. But that we were evil, malignant and mean–to that we say "no"!”

“We have never had a superhero that looks like us and speaks like us and shares the same experiences and environment as us. Comic books in South Africa are still at crawling stage. The market hasn’t been tapped into and activated. As someone who is passionate about comics and the power of comics, I see it as a challenge to overcome.”

“SA, long regarded as the gateway to Africa, suffers from reputational damage due to the high crime rate (including high-profile murders), the finance minister fiasco, parliamentary shenanigans and chicanery by President Jacob Zuma over payment for upgrades at his Nkandla home.”

“... as there has been an awakening in India, even so there will be an awakening in South Africa with its vastly richer resources – natural, mineral and human. The mighty English look quite pygmies before the mighty races of Africa. They are noble savages after all, you will say. They are certainly noble, but no savages and in the course of a few years the Western nations may cease to find in Africa a dumping ground for their wares.”

“Compared to its regional counterparts, South Africa is a wealthy country. It has a strong economy and a solid industrial base. It has the potential to become a regional leader and assert influence over all of southern Africa. And yet, South Africa today is focused almost entirely inward, its ability to project power constrained by competition between numerous factions. This wasn’t always the case.”

“To illustrate how dramatically populations can displace each other over time, the historian E.M. Kulischer once reminded his readers that in A.D. 900 Berlin had no Germans, Moscow had no Russians, Budapest had no Hungarians, Madrid was a Moorish settlement, and Constantinople had hardly any Turks. He added that the Normans had not yet settled in Great Britain and before the sixteenth century there were no Europeans living in North or South America, Australia, New Zealand, or South Africa.”