Top 100 Quotes About South Africa
#1. Do you think that the people of South Africa, or anywhere on the continent of Africa, or India, or Pakistan are longing to be kicked around all over again?
Arundhati Roy
#2. We've built six schools in Colombia and do work in South Africa and Haiti. We teach 5,000 students.
Shakira
#3. Perhaps it is God's will to lead the people of South Africa through defeat and humiliation to a better future and a brighter day.
Jan Smuts
#4. I engaged upon those activities because I believed that, in the dangerous circumstances which have been created in South Africa, it was my duty to do so.
Bram Fischer
#5. I've wanted to be an actor since I was 6 years old. I was literally picked off the streets of Paris ... while I was modeling there. I was asked to audition for Oliver Stone's 'Alexander.' I didn't get the part, but that led to commercials and roles in South Africa.
Tanit Phoenix
#6. South Africa had a long record of studies in prehistory, going back to the end of the last century.
Louis Leakey
#7. It deals with so many different aspects of living in South Africa the racial issues of South Africans and Asians with poverty with the reality of children orphaned by AIDS the transition from village life to city life.
Laura Thielen
#8. We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do ... We believe also that the white race of South Africa should be the predominating race.
Mahatma Gandhi
#9. The G8 nations, together with the five major emerging economies of China, India, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, use almost three-quarters of the Earth's biocapacity - the capacity of the world's ecosystems to produce natural resources and to reduce harmful substances.
Sigmar Gabriel
#10. South Africa gives me a perspective of what's real and what's not real. So I go back to South Africa to both lose myself and gain awareness of myself. Every time I go back, it doesn't take long for me to get caught into a very different thing. A very different sense of myself.
Dave Matthews
#11. As a South African I honestly cannot understand how people can't see South Africa as a unique nation, untied by ties of history, bonds of suffering, victory, struggles, hope - and in more ways than I ever before thought possible - blood.
Christina Engela
#12. Greece is the mother of democracy and South Africa is its youngest daughter
Nelson Mandela
#13. Stand-up is not just an American thing anymore. It's global. In some places, stand-up comedy is brand new. South Africa has only had a scene for 15 years.
Gabriel Iglesias
#14. In South Africa today, black is the new black, bra.
Zukiswa Wanner
#15. I helped found Artists for New South Africa, but it used to be called Artists for Free South Africa. Alfre Woodard and a bunch of us started this.
Mary Steenburgen
#16. When I visit my brother in South Africa, I order things I've only seen in zoos. Little deers and kudu, all the mammals you would never think of eating.
Chuck Palahniuk
#17. I wanted to make a black story about South Africa. Unfortunately, no producer in the United States would put one penny into a black story.
Euzhan Palcy
#18. Living in South Africa and periodically coming back to Kenya, my relationship with officialdom in Kenya was just insane.
Binyavanga Wainaina
#19. History, well taught, is the demythologising of the past ... Take any important issue of our time - Northern Ireland, Nuclear Disarmament, Race, The Welfare State, South Africa - and it becomes impossible to seriously confront any of them without understanding their historical background.
Alan Bullock
#20. Nelson Mandela was in jail when I was really young, and Winnie Mandela was one of the biggest faces of the movement. In South Africa we have a common phrase - it's like a chant in the street and at rallies: "Wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo." Which means, "You strike a woman, you strike a rock."
Trevor Noah
#21. I myself am a very, very peaceful person. Throughout our history, from our own American revolution to the resistance against apartheid in South Africa, to labor strikes in the US, people have resorted to violence to achieve a more progressive society, from time to time.
Tom Morello
#22. To have been selected to represent Team South Africa at the London 2012 Olympic Games in the individual 400m and the 4x400m relay is a real honor and I am so pleased that years of hard work, determination and sacrifice have all come together.
Oscar Pistorius
#23. As you study vampire legend throughout history, it goes back to almost every culture. South Africa, Indonesia, crazy places have that legend and that idea of immortality.
Catherine Hardwicke
#24. When I lived in South Africa, someone told me what the longest road in Africa is. It's not the road from Cairo to Capetown, it's the way from your head to your heart, and from there to the here and now.
Bert Hellinger
#25. South Africa never leaves one indifferent. Its history, its population, its landscapes and cultures - all speak to the visitor, to the student, to the friend of Africa.
Tariq Ramadan
#26. Europe I travelled third - and only once first, just to see what it was like - but there I noticed no such difference between the first and the third-classes. In South Africa third-class passengers are mostly Negroes, yet the third-class comforts are better there than here.
Mahatma Gandhi
#27. For most of my writing life, I've refused to allow myself to believe that writing was a significant form of action. I always felt very uneasy about the fact that all I did was write in a situation as desperate as apartheid South Africa. Whether I was correct or not is a different issue.
Athol Fugard
#28. My thinking was taught to tribes in South Africa like the Zulus and Xhosas. At the time there were about 210 fights breaking out among them every month, but after they listened to my lessons, this fell to just four.
Edward De Bono
#29. If I hadn't left South Africa, I felt I was at risk of being pigeonholed. I looked around and saw actors who, 10 to 15 years into their careers, were still playing stereotypical Afrikaans characters, stereotyped Indian characters. That was not something that I wanted for myself.
Adhir Kalyan
#30. South Africa is a whole other world. I went to grade school there and high school in Johannesburg, and before that, my family lived in Kenya in Nairobi where my brother was actually born, and my sister was born in Capetown. I spent the first 10 years of my life in South Africa.
Jann Klose
#31. My plays have been translated into all of the official languages of South Africa except Afrikaans.
Zakes Mda
#32. I think every child in every country, not just South Africa, every year should go to a national park, and it should be part of their basic curriculum.
Lewis Pugh
#33. I live in South Africa. I'm proud to live there. I've always said I want to be a comedian from South Africa in the world. I will stay in places for a bit here and there and pop into New York for a while, maybe stay in London for a year, but my home will always be South Africa. I enjoy it too much.
Trevor Noah
#35. Only in South Africa could you have a change in government without civil war. If there wasn't the depth of love and caring among our people, this would not have happened.
Patrice Motsepe
#36. There are, of course, all sorts of other unpleasant regimes outside the walls as well - the military dictators of Latin America and the apartheid regime of South Africa.
Barbara Amiel
#37. What we need in South Africa is for egos to be suppressed in favour of peace. We need to create a new breed of South Africans who love their country and love everybody, irrespective of their colour.
Chris Hani
#38. Today we are a nation at peace with itself, united in our diversity, not only proclaiming but living out the contention that South Africa belongs to all who live in it. We take our place amongst the nations of the world, confident and proud in being an African country.
Nelson Mandela
#39. The Green Revolution focused on the big three - maize, rice and wheat - and the Green Revolution did not adapt the big three to African conditions, other than South Africa, as much as they should have.
Bill Gates
#40. The time comes in the life of any nation when there remain only two choices - submit or fight. That time has now come to South Africa. We shall not submit and we have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom
Nelson Mandela
#41. I grew up in South Africa, but like many people at that time, I couldn't bear living in the country. The main motivation for moving to Britain was to get away.
Manfred Mann
#42. For you in the West to hear the phrase 'All men are created equal' is to draw a yawn. For us, it's a miracle. We're starting out at rock bottom, man. But South Africa does have soul.
Athol Fugard
#43. South Africa had very poor repertory distribution. I didn't find out about Akira Kurosawa and Tarkovsky and Werner Herzog until I got to the U.K.
Richard Stanley
#44. The next day the government of South Africa announced that full civil rights would be restored to the white minority.
Arthur C. Clarke
#45. I and others on FIFA executive committee agreed to accept bribes in conjunction with selection of South Africa as host nation.
Bryan Swanson
#46. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.
Desmond Tutu
#47. South Africa, it's like the little asshole of the whole world - it's, like, the bottom. It's, like, in the dark depths of the hallway.
Watkin Tudor Jones
#48. In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face.
Steven Biko
#49. When I was in South Africa, I was meeting with people who never heard of Lego bricks. And yet, when I was like, 'Here they are,' they immediately got it. They saw the appeal, were snapping bricks and creating their little creations right there immediately.
Nathan Sawaya
#50. I grew up in Mossel Bay in South Africa on the Garden Route. It's really windy there, and I like it. I enjoy links golf a lot.
Louis Oosthuizen
#51. Comedy is really getting quite popular in South Africa.
Trevor Noah
#52. All of our forebears contributed to what South Africa has become. That does not, however, mean that I must apologize to anyone for being born a Zulu, or for having that culture.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi
#53. This country is armed to the teeth, and none of these African states could begin to attack South Africa.
Helen Suzman
#54. If I wasn't acting, I would sail professionally. Nowhere specific, but I'd sail to Bermuda, South Africa, ya know, get paid to race in Regattas, I think that'd be pretty rad.
Jack Falahee
#55. If it were in our national security to deploy to South Africa under apartheid, would we have found it acceptable or customary to segregate African American soldiers from other American soldiers, and say, 'It's just a cultural thing'? I don't think so. I would hope not.
Martha McSally
#56. South Africa is highly politicised; even small issues become politicised, and it becomes quite bitter.
Damon Galgut
#57. I am no fashion diva - I grew up on the beaches in South Africa and am a nature girl that spends a lot of time outdoors. Fashion speaks to me through an occasion.
Tanit Phoenix
#58. It is wrong to divide the nation white against black, native born against immigrant or one religion against another. It is also wrong to divide people by income. East Germany was not an improvement over South Africa. Obama divides Americans against each other. This is wrong.
Grover Norquist
#59. Nelson Mandela will always be the face of South Africa. The traveler passing through the country will see Mandela's face almost everywhere he looks. Truly, the man is omnipresent.
Henry Rollins
#60. We hope for the best, if elections are conducted like this all over South Africa we can indeed say we welcome any results and accept them.
Julius Malema
#61. I skated in ice shows all over Europe and South Africa for 20 years. I love to ice skate.
Kenny Baker
#62. South Africa does not have a poverty problem. Poverty is a result of denialism of the way corruption taxes poor people, the inefficiencies that undermine poor people's opportunities and our refusal to admit that we are part of the problem.
Mamphela Ramphele
#63. No matter what vision one has of South Africa, the first thing that must be done is to destroy racism.
Joe Slovo
#64. When I was in South Africa, I went for dinner with some friends, and I knew more about their history than they did - it just hasn't been told.
David Harewood
#65. The history of apartheid-era South Africa is incredibly sad and at times infuriatingly incomprehensible.
Henry Rollins
#66. On Saturday, I was a surgeon in South Africa, very little known. On Monday, I was world renowned.
Christiaan Barnard
#67. The idea of black poverty is always presented as the outcome of white wealth, but what South Africa has is a poverty problem, not necessarily a black poverty problem because it is a largely black country.
Ferial Haffajee
#68. Let's scope the place out," he suggested, heading around the side of the building, "and be careful in the bushes." "Why?" Amy asked. "This is South Africa, dude," Dan replied. "Where cobras come from. And not the hot ones, like Ian.
Peter Lerangis
#69. The King had been a good friend of the government and the people of South Africa and we all mourn his passing with our brothers and sisters in Saudi Arabia.
Thabo Mbeki
#70. I've had a great time in South America and South Africa. Indeed it now seems that on this pair of wild hot continents I've enjoyed the most fruitful year of my life.
John Muir
#71. It was fortunate in looking back for South Africa and its entire people that Mandela and I found it possible to work together even though big strains developed between us from time to time.
F. W. De Klerk
#72. As a citizen of this country, I've got to be honest to the people of South Africa.
Jacob Zuma
#73. I can't on my own change the regime in South Africa or teach the Palestinians to learn to live with the Israelies, but I can start with me.
River Phoenix
#74. I grew up in South Africa and I would look at maps and we were at the bottom of the world. There was this whole thing up there. I was always reading encyclopedias about the world. So travel was something I was always attracted to.
Charlize Theron
#75. When Nelson Mandela walked free, the world sang with joy. Ever since, South Africa has stood as a beacon of hope for Africa.
Ban Ki-moon
#76. But certainly in Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa, people don't really talk about sex and certainly religious leaders - some of them - up to now have been very unwilling to accept, for instance, the promotion of condom use
Emma Thompson
#78. Pick any player of the world. Make him the captain of India. I can assure you that the results will still be the same. MS Dhoni just not lucky enough to have the kind of bowlers that top teams like Australia, South Africa and New Zealand have.
Sourav Ganguly
#79. Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life.
[ Live 8 Concert, Mary Fitzgerald Square, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2 July 2005]
Nelson Mandela
#80. I've seen so many screw-ups of representations of South Africa, and it makes me so angry every time.
Lauren Beukes
#81. They can change every name in South Africa, but it won't change the fact that the government has failed to provide services or curb crime
Connie Mulder
#82. I went cage diving in South Africa with Great Whites, and that was fun. Sweden was cool.
Peter Uihlein
#83. A lot of people say colonialism was 'evil' or whatever, but what have they really done with Africa since we gave it back to them? I don't think it should be considered 'racist' to admit maybe ending apartheid did more harm than good in South Africa.
Zach Braff
#84. I was raised in a spirit of the importance of service to your fellow man. My mom is a senator back home in South Africa. My father is a very caring and generous individual.
Adhir Kalyan
#85. Obviously when it comes to the question of telling stories about other people's lives in a situation as political as South Africa, you get to be political.
Athol Fugard
#86. The Jews took Israel from the Arabs after the Arabs had lived there for a thousand years. Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state.
Hendrik Verwoerd
#87. As a young woman, I attended Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa, which was then not segregated. But I witnessed the weight of apartheid everywhere around me.
Teresa Heinz
#88. Well, I think by any expectation South Africa has come a tremendously long way. We've seen a society that many people thought couldn't withstand a peaceful transition to democracy without a great deal of violence, in fact, make that transition and do it in relative peace and security.
Susan Rice
#89. South Africa was to evolve into the most pernicious example of the criminal practise of colonial and white minority domination.
Thabo Mbeki
#90. South Africa is not a jellyfish and is in many respects a swordfish.
P. W. Botha
#91. In South Africa, where HIV-positive children are often shunned, we have an HIV-positive Muppet to teach children to be friendly with children with HIV. But they use local actors. And it's not always a street. Sometimes it's 'Sesame Plaza,' or 'Sesame Tree.'
Joan Ganz Cooney
#92. The problem of South Africa is different than the world thinks. There is no native problem. The native worker gets more than white workers do in England! [ ... ] The South African government is not a police state. It's easier on people than the United States government!
L. Ron Hubbard
#93. Zimbabwe has far fewer tourists than South Africa or Kenya, and there's less crime as well.
Nicholas Kristof
#94. Jan van Riebeeck's arrival in Cape Town was the beginning of all South Africa's problems.
Jacob Zuma
#95. I think growing up in South Africa, and then moving to Canada, I'm just genuinely interested in the difference between the First World and the Third World, immigration, and how the new, globalized world is beginning to operate. All of those things run through my mind a lot.
Neill Blomkamp
#96. Trying to understand, inside, what it is to be Ugandan was crucial to the character, because there are Ugandan ways of doing things that I was trying to capture. Even if I had made this movie in South Africa, it would not have been the same, because it is so specific to Uganda.
Forest Whitaker
#97. Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.
Desmond Tutu
#98. In my many trips to South Africa, I have met and spoken to a lot of people there, and they all seem to find apartheid as repellent as you would.
Henry Rollins
#99. It's not difficult in South Africa for the ordinary person to see the link between capitalism and racist exploitation, and when one sees the link one immediately thinks in terms of a socialist alternative.
Joe Slovo
#100. Nelson Mandela sat in a South African prison for 27 years. He was nonviolent. He negotiated his way out of jail. His honor and suffering of 27 years in a South African prison is really ultimately what brought about the freedom of South Africa. That is nonviolence.
Coretta Scott King
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