Top 100 Haile Quotes
#1. Everything Mengistu has done since 1977 has been to place himself in a position of uncontestable power. Neither Haile Selassie nor any of the previous emperors had this insatiable thirst for power.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
#2. I used to live in Ethiopia as a child, and I lived there when Haile Selassie was the emperor.
Jack Kingston
#3. The Rastafari culture has a very strong connection to Haile Selassie, a descendant of King Solomon.
Ziggy Marley
#4. There is always something moving, brewing. There are ambitious people everywhere. Wicked people. The only thing to do is to deal with them with courage and decision. One must beware of uncertainty, weakness or conflicting emotions - they lead to defeat
Haile Selassie
#5. Most, especially the young filmmakers, do not see strength in communal or collective existence. They just think they're going to conquer the world as individuals. There is no world like that. In cinema it's always, even in Hollywood, a collective surge.
Haile Gerima
#6. Many discouraging hours will arise before the rainbow of accomplished goals will appear on the horizon.
Haile Selassie
#7. Let us set our goals too high; let us demand more of ourselves than we believe we possess
Haile Selassie
#8. Conflicts between nations will continue to arise. The real issue is whether they are to be resolved by force, or by resort to peaceful methods and procedures, administered by impartial institutions.
Haile Selassie
#9. At the moment I am a little bit politician, yes. I think that could be my next step. It is not because I want power, it is because of what I think I could do for the people.
Haile Gebrselassie
#12. Spiritual power is the eternal guide, in this life and the life after, for man ranks supreme among all creatures. Led forward by spiritual power, man can reach the summit destined for him by the Great Creator.
Haile Selassie
#13. There has to be consistent emergence of two or three films - narratively, stylistically, consistently demonstrating you are here to go on. And on that kind of basis, I'm not seeing much. I'm just waiting to see.
Haile Gerima
#14. You know the marathon in my country is just exceptional. It's like soccer in England. If England win the world cup and Ethiopia win the marathon - it's the same.
Haile Gebrselassie
#16. The system knows how to cherry pick black people. It's like affirmative action - once a year, one is recognized. But what has to occur is self-emergence so if they ignore you, you don't have to disappear.
Haile Gerima
#17. A lot of young black people in America, and even in Africa and Brazil, would say that they are telling their story, but most of the films are like application forms with the formulaic ideas of Hollywood.
Haile Gerima
#18. If you are open-minded and ready to learn, there are many things which you can learn not only from books and instructores but form the very life experience itself.
Haile Selassie
#19. When you run the marathon, you run against the distance, not against the other runners and not against the time.
Haile Gebrselassie
#21. The Ethiopian government's use of the railway from Djibouti to Addis Ababa was, in practice, a hazardous regards transport of arms intended for the Ethiopian forces.
Haile Selassie
#22. Observe that anyone who dies for his country is a fortunate man, but death takes what it wants, indiscriminately, in peace-time as well as in war. It is better to die with freedom than without it.
Haile Selassie
#23. The fruits of one's sweat and mental labour are always rewarding
Haile Selassie
#24. I remember in particular my first victory when I achieved a very fast time in what were perfect conditions but since then the wind has always been a factor against me.
Haile Gebrselassie
#25. As man's faculty attains higher level of development and sophistication, so do his wants in life
Haile Selassie
#26. Peace demands the united efforts of us all. Who can foresee what spark might ignite the fuse?
Haile Selassie
#28. We have decided to bring to an end the most unequal, most unjust, most barbarous war of our age, and have chosen the road to exile in order that our people will not be exterminated and in order to consecrate ourselves wholly and in peace to the preservation of our empire's independence.
Haile Selassie
#29. Any who may wish to profit himself alone from the knowledge given him, rather than serve others through the knowledge he has gained from learning, is betraying knowledge and rendering it worthless
Haile Selassie
#30. When the system does not recognize me I'm not devastated.
Haile Gerima
#31. I feel a social responsibility. We need to open people's eyes. There is a lack of education in Ethiopia.
Haile Gebrselassie
#32. When you talk about world record times, you have to understand that everything must be perfect the weather, the course, the temperature. It is not always enough to be in good shape.
Haile Gebrselassie
#33. Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.
Haile Gebrselassie
#34. Africa's mineral wealth is great; we should co-operate in its development.
Haile Selassie
#35. We must become bigger than we have been: more courageous, greater in spirit, larger in outlook. We must become members of a new race, overcoming petty prejudice, owing our ultimate allegiance not to nations but to our fellow men within the human community.
Haile Selassie
#38. Today I stand before the world organization which has succeeded to the mantle discarded by its discredited predecessor.
Haile Selassie
#39. I think not many young people are willing to pay the price of telling their own story.
Haile Gerima
#40. To me the industry has always said that the lovers and haters and principal characters will always be white in Hollywood, and black people will always be appendages of those kinds of dramas, or they will be comedic outlets. It will never change.
Haile Gerima
#41. There is nothing as precious to man as a sound mind in a sound body and it is essential that the physical well being of our people merits as much attention as its spiritual welfare
Haile Selassie
#42. When we race in London a world record will be the last thing on our minds.
Haile Gebrselassie
#43. I used to run to school, 10k every day. And this at altitude, perfect preparation, really.
Haile Gebrselassie
#45. The marathon always starts after 30K. That's where the problems start. You start without any problems, without any pain. All the pain comes after 30K. Sometimes, it's possible to have pain even in the finger.
Haile Gebrselassie
#46. A well organized education should not be one which prepares students for a good remuneration alone. It should be one that can help and guide them towards acquiring clear thinking, a fruitful mind, and an elevated spirit.
Haile Selassie
#47. You know, I want to help my country. Definitely I can help them, simply by winning races. Sure, they can follow my path to a good career. But for me it is not enough. I want to be more than that. In everything I want to be a role model.
Haile Gebrselassie
#48. When I run in Ethiopia, I look out and see eucalyptus trees and rivers.
Haile Gebrselassie
#49. Being a great athlete is something that requires a lot of training and dedication, it does not come as easily as some people may think.
Haile Gebrselassie
#50. Everyone, in all walks of life, regardless of his professional occupation should feel concerned and play an active role to solve such problems which affect mankind ...
Haile Selassie
#51. I know what I want when I start a marathon: to win! But what do you want? Make sure you're clear in advance and don't go out too fast.
Haile Gebrselassie
#52. I'm retiring from competitive running, not from running. You cannot stop running, this is my life,
Haile Gebrselassie
#53. You know for me when I promise something I want to deliver. If you don't, you have to disappear.
Haile Gebrselassie
#54. We have before us the examples of the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. We must remember how long these required to achieve their union. When a solid foundation is laid, if the mason is able and his materials good, a strong house can be built.
Haile Selassie
#55. I am not interested only in telling a story, but I want to tell it my way. I don't want my accent, my temperament, my narrative style to be compromised to fit into a mold of the Hollywood type.
Haile Gerima
#56. This hand is not very active always, because it was in this hand that I carried my books. My carrying hand was always my strongest. Now I think my other hand has developed more muscles from signing all those autographs.
Haile Gebrselassie
#57. My father didn't think running was sensible. He told me running is just wasting time.
Haile Gebrselassie
#58. Mengistu seemed to symbolize the revolution. He was the baria, the slave who overthrew the master, the member of the conquered tribe who got even with the conquerors, the poorly educated son of a servant who rose against the intellectual elite.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
#59. We thought that the proletariat would eventually run the world. But it is the Americans who have assumed that position ... The American people have changed.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
#60. You must do as your people do. If my people are poor, I must be poor. People ask me, 'Why don't you find a personal coach or a private car?' I can't. Then I won't be part of my people.
Haile Gebrselassie
#61. It is not only war that can stop war but men of goodwill, conscious of their mission can deal with such deadly enemy ...
Haile Selassie
#62. Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
Haile Selassie
#63. Mahatma Gandhi will always be remembered as long as free men and those who love freedom and justice live.
Haile Selassie
#64. The nations of Africa, as is true of every continent of the world, from time to time dispute among themselves. These quarrels must be confined to this continent and quarantined from the contamination of non-African interference.
Haile Selassie
#65. If you never did anything for your own freedom, you're not worth a human being in my view.
Haile Gerima
#66. Mengistu is a barbaric and cruel creature who becomes happy with the death of human beings.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
#68. I will always listen to my coaches. But first I listen to my body. If what they tell me suits my body, great. If my body doesn't feel good with what they say, then always my body comes first.
Haile Gebrselassie
#70. When you don't work together you can't emerge as a force. It becomes what some call a "lonely struggle" and individual self-destruction.
Haile Gerima
#71. He [the Almighty] taught us that all human beings are equal regardless of sex, national origin and tribe. And He also taught us all who seek Him shall find Him.
Haile Selassie
#72. When 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.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
#73. Most young people now are very vulnerable as to what the American film aficionados are going to say. They care too much about a system that has no room for them. It's really a serious issue for me, because to me it's, how do I survive beyond a film that was disgraced or praised?
Haile Gerima
#74. Why should I say I will retire in three or four years? You retire the very moment you utter those words.
Haile Gebrselassie
#75. Education develops the intellect; and the intellect distinguishes man from other creatures. It is education that enables man to harness nature and utilize her resources for the well-being and improvement of his life
Haile Selassie
#76. Most young people make films to be accepted, to be discovered, when in fact that was the last idea with the group I went to film school with. To be discovered was not our intention. Our intention was to tell our story our way, and make our own mistakes and learn from film to film.
Haile Gerima
#78. After Mengistu consolidated his power in 1978, his personality gradually began to change. His ability to listen and his patience faded away. We could now see these qualities were pretences only; he had been putting on his best behavior in his bid for support.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
#79. Tarantino is a spoiled little white kid. He can do any movie he wants and nobody can do anything about it.
Haile Gerima
#80. If your body is damaged, wounded, it can be fixed, but if inside, mentally, you are wounded you cannot fix it, it's hard.
Haile Gebrselassie
#81. I have lived too long to cherish many illusions about the essential high-mindedness of men when brought into stark confrontation with the issue of control over their security, and their property interests.
Haile Selassie
#82. In the history of the human race, those periods which later appeared as great have been the periods when the men and the women belonging to them had transcended the differences that divided them and had recognized in their membership in the human race a common bond.
Haile Selassie
#83. There is no power or authority without responsibility, and he who accepts the one cannot escape or evade the other.
Haile Selassie
#84. Until all Africans stand and speak as free human beings, equal in the eyes of the Almighty; until that day, the African continent shall not know peace.
Haile Selassie
#85. My father thought sport was something fun - he didn't know it was a way to make money. Then I won a Mercedes at the world championships and I gave it to him. From the moment it arrived my father said: 'Good, you can support not just yourself but me too'.
Haile Gebrselassie
#86. There are filmmakers like me in different parts of the world that have a story they want to tell, and it's a story that comes out of a certain historical reality within their own life. Then you get committed all the way and however long it takes, stay very committed.
Haile Gerima
#87. We all wish to live. We all seek a world in which men are freed of the burdens of ignorance, poverty, hunger and disease. And we shall all be hard-pressed to escape the deadly rain of nuclear fall-out should catastrophe overtake us.
Haile Selassie
#89. Above all, we must avoid the pitfalls of tribalism. If we are divided among ourselves on tribal lines, we open our doors to foreign intervention and its potentially harmful consequences.
Haile Selassie
#90. I always tell young athletes the same thing, 'Wherever you go, whatever you do, what must your top priority be? Running.'
Haile Gebrselassie
#91. Ethiopia did not have the same problem [of corruption]. African leaders looked at us with envy.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
#92. Some people start a sport just to reduce weight, or some say, 'My doctor ordered me to run and do exercise', and for others, they run for completely different benefits. But it is not like that with sport. We need to eat, we need to rest, but also we need to run.
Haile Gebrselassie
#94. Mengistu does not understand the meaning of self-determination, either historically or in the abstract. He cannot conceive of a nation as anything but an absolute centralized authority, totalitarianism, for his rule is nothing less than that now.
Mengistu Haile Mariam
#95. Eradicate poverty. This is all that matters in my country. When I am out training I think about this a lot; when I am running it is going over in my mind. As a country we cannot move forward until we eradicate poverty.
Haile Gebrselassie
#96. The true leader is a different sort; he seeks effective activity which has a truly beneficient purpose. He inspires others to follow in his wake, and holding aloft the torch of wisdom, leads the way for society to realize its genuinely great aspirations
Haile Selassie
#97. I'm lucky. The best possible place in the world for training is Addis Ababa, so I am home all the time except when I am racing. I like to be there, near my family, my kids, also the real estate business I run with my wife.
Haile Gebrselassie
#98. That is not enough. Sport has been great for me, a great learning place that if you want to achieve you can, even if you are from the poorest part of Africa.
Haile Gebrselassie
#99. It is not my duty to spend my money in my country, but it is what I want to do. There is nowhere else I would like to invest.
Haile Gebrselassie
#100. This is what I wanted. They tell me that London is the best field in history. I wanted to be part of that. Because everyone will be there it will be a wonderful challenge for me. You can see the best runners, how they look, how they run. For me to beat the best is what counts.
Haile Gebrselassie
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