African Quotes | Proverbs
The Irresistible Pull of Africa
Don’t let the media or the thoughts of others influence your view and impressions of Africa. It is a wild, beautiful, raw, dynamic place. That you have to see and experience for yourself.
Here I am where I belong ― Karen Blixen (Danish author best known for “Out of Africa”, her account of living in Kenya)
If you only visit two continents in your lifetime, visit Africa – twice! ― R. Elliot
I hope you have an experience that alters the course of your life because, after Africa, nothing has ever been the same – Suzanne Evans.
All I wanted to do was get back to Africa. We had not left it, yet, but when I would wake in the night I would lie, listening, homesick for it already ― Ernest Hemingway
The only man I envy is the man who has not yet been to Africa, for he has so much to look forward to — Richard Mullin
I never knew of a morning in Africa when I woke up that I was not happy — Ernest Hemingway
I grew up in Rhodesia on my father’s ranch and every day was a safari, I just did not know it at the time. Now that the years have passed I look back with immense gratitude — Ian Nicholson
If I have ever seen magic, it has been in Africa — John Hemingway
When you leave Africa, as the plane lifts, you feel that more than leaving a continent you’re leaving state of mind. Whatever awaits you at the other end of your journey will be of a different order of existence — Francesca Marciano
You either get the point of Africa or you don’t. What draws me back year after year is that it’s like seeing the world with the lid off ― AA Gill.
Nothing but breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it, can communicate the indescribable sensations – William Burchell.
To get lost is to learn the way — African proverb
You have to understand - there is a romance to Africa.
You can see a sunset and believe you have witnessed the Hand of God.
You watch the slow lope of a lioness and forget to breathe.
You marvel at the tripod of a giraffe bent to water.
In Africa, there are iridescent blues on the wings of birds that you do not see anywhere else in nature.
In Africa, in the midday heat, you can see blisters in the atmosphere.
When you are in Africa, you feel primordial, rocked in the cradle of the world – Jodi Picoult
It’s really beautiful. It feels like God visits everywhere else, but lives in Africa — Will Smith
For as long as I can remember, I have been passionately intrigued by ‘Africa,’ by the word itself, by its flora and fauna, its topographical diversity and grandeur; but above all else, by the sheer variety of the colors of its people, from tan and sepia to jet and ebony — Henry Louis Gates.
One cannot resist the lure of Africa — Rudyard Kipling
You can’t hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can’t hate Africa and not hate yourself — Malcolm X
Everything in Africa bites, but the safari bug is the worst of all — Brian Jackman
If anyone wants to know what elephants are like, they are like people only more so — Pierre Corneille
The drums of Africa still beat in my heart — Mary Bethune
There is language going on out there – the language of the wild. Roars, snorts, trumpets, squeals, whoops, and chirps all have meaning derived over eons of expression… We have yet to become fluent in the language – and music – of the wild — Boyd Norton
I dream of an Africa, which is in peace with itself — Nelson Mandela
Her heart was made of liquid sunsets — Virginia Wolf
There is no wifi on safari, but you will find a better connection — Africa Freak
In Africa you have space… there is a profound sense of space here, space and sky — Thabo Mbeki
Africa changes you forever, like nowhere on earth. Once you have been there, you will never be the same. But how do you begin to describe its magic to someone who has never felt it? How can you explain the fascination of this vast, dusty continent, whose oldest roads are elephant paths? Could it be because Africa is the place of all our beginnings, the cradle of mankind, where our species first stood upright on the savannahs of long ago? Brian Jackman
The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say ‘Africa’. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist — Ryszard Kapuseinski
Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wide man respects them — Miriam Makeba
Old and new kiss everywhere in Africa — John Gunther
Africa is mystic; it is wild; it is a sweltering inferno; it is a photographer’s paradise, a hunter’s Valhalla, an escapist’s Utopia. It is what you will, and it withstands all interpretations. It is the last vestige of a dead world or the cradle of a shiny new one. To a lot of people, as to myself, it is just home — Beryl Markham
Maybe that is why you seem to live more vividly in Africa. The drama of life there is amplified by its constant proximity to death. That’s what infuses it with tension. It is the essence of its tragedy too. People love harder there. Love is the way that life forgets that it is terminal. Love is life’s alibi in the face of death — Peter Godwin
You know you are truly alive when you’re living among lions — Isak Dinesen
When you have caught the rhythm of Africa, you find out that it is the same in all her music — Karen Blixen
Every time the sun goes down
Reminds me of the love I’ve found
At sunset, sunset
Sunset, African sunset
I hear you calling me, so far away
Sunset, my African sunset
I feel you reaching out
Across the water — Tommy Page
There is no day that goes without the moon and no day that goes without sunrise and sunset — Quote Africa
I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me — Kwame Nkrumah
I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses — Nelson Mandela
Surely, of all the wonders of the world, the horizon is the greatest — Freya Stark
Why is it you can never hope to describe the emotion Africa creates? You are lifted. Out of whatever pit, unbound from whatever tie, released from whatever fear. You are lifted and you see it all from above — Francesca Marciano
Africa is not a country, but it is a continent like none other. It has that which is elegantly vast or awfully little — Douglas Wilder
Nothing but breathing the air of Africa, and actually walking through it, can communicate the indescribable sensations — William Burchell
If there were one more thing I could do, it would be to go on safari once again — Karen Blixen
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together — Quote in Africa
There are as many Africas as there are books about Africa — and as many books about it as you could read in a leisurely lifetime. Whoever writes a new one can afford a certain complacency in the knowledge that his is a new picture agreeing with no one else’s, but likely to be haughtily disagreed with by all those who believed in some other Africa. … Being thus all things to all authors, it follows, I suppose, that Africa must be all things to all readers — Beryl Markham
Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water — W Fields
Few can sojourn long within the unspoilt wilderness of a game sanctuary, surrounded on all sides by its confiding animals, without absorbing its atmosphere; the Spirit of the Wild is quick to assert supremacy, and no man of any sensibility can resist her — James Stevenson-Hamilton
To witness that calm rhythm of life revives our worn souls and recaptures a feeling of belonging to the natural world. No one can return from the Serengeti unchanged, for tawny lions will forever prowl our memory and great herds throng our imagination — George Schaller
There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne — bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive — Karen Blixen
Africa is our center of gravity, our cultural and spiritual mother and father, our beating heart, no matter where we live on the face of this earth — John Clarke
The biggest lesson from Africa was that life’s joys come mostly from relationships and friendships, not from material things. I saw time and again how much fun Africans had with their families and friends and on the sports fields; they laughed all the time — Andrew Shue
There is always something new out of Africa — Pliny the Elder
But African time was not the same as American time… As African time passed, I surmised that the pace of Western countries was insane, that the speed of modern technology accomplished nothing, and that because Africa was going its own way at its own pace for its own reasons, it was a refuge and a resting place — Paul Theroux
To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries — Aldous Huxley
You cannot leave Africa. It is always with you, there inside your head. Our rivers run in currents in the swirl of your thumbprints; our drumbeats counting out your pulse; our coastline the silhouette of your soul — Bridget Dore
Having travelled to some 20 African countries, I find myself, like so many other visitors to Africa before me, intoxicated with the continent. And I am not referring to the animals, as much as I have been enthralled by them during safaris in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. Rather, I am referring to the African people — Dennis Prager
I believe there is no sickness of the heart too great it cannot be cured by a dose of Africa. Families must go there to learn why they belong together on this Earth, adolescents to discover humility, lovers to plumb old but untried wells of passion, honeymooners to seal marriages with a shared sense of bafflement, those shopworn with life to find a tonic for futility, the aged to recognise a symmetry to twilight. I know this all sounds a bit much, but if I have ever seen magic, it has been in Africa — John Hemingway
You are not a country, Africa. You are a concept. You are not a concept, Africa. You are a glimpse of the infinite — Ali Mazrui
To see ten thousand animals untamed and not branded with the symbols of human commerce is like scaling an unconquered mountain for the first time, or like finding a forest without roads or footpaths, or the blemish of an axe. You know then what you had always been told – that the world once lived and grew without adding machines and newsprint and brick-walled streets and the tyranny of clocks — Beryl Markham
Now, looking back on my life in Africa, I feel like it might altogether be described as the existence of a person who had come from a rushed and noisy world, into a still country… So lovely as if the contemplation of it could itself be enough to make you happy all your life — Karen Blixen
The only thing that makes me sad is that I shall be leaving Africa when I die. I love Africa, which is my mother and my father. When I am dead, I shall miss the smell of Africa — Alexander McCall Smith
Tourists who go to Africa have more of a traditional experience than Africans do. A tourist goes on safari; Africans don’t — Paul Theroux (American travel writer; from Dark Star Safari)
Africa gives you the knowledge that man is a small creature, amongst other creatures, in a large landscape — Doris Lessing
You either get the point of Africa or you don’t. What draws me back year after year is that it’s like seeing the world with the lid off — A.A. Gill
We are all children of Africa, and none of us is better or more important than the other. This is what Africa could say to the world: it could remind it what it is to be human — Alexander McCall Smith
With each new day in Africa, a gazelle wakes up knowing he must outrun the fastest lion or perish. At the same time, a lion stirs and stretches, knowing he must outrun the fastest gazelle or starve. It’s no different for the human race. Whether you consider yourself a gazelle or a lion, you have to run faster than others to survive — Mohammed Maktoum
For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place — Maya Angelou
I will not leave South Africa, nor will I surrender. Only through hardship, sacrifice and militant action can freedom be won. The struggle is my life. I will continue fighting for freedom until the end of my days — Nelson Mandela
Africa is on the rise
When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said ‘Let us pray.’ We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land — Desmond Tutu
We see a new Ethiopia, a new Africa, stretching her hands of influence throughout the world, teaching man the way of life and peace, The Way to God — Marcus Garvey
Africa has become the big game of the nation hunters. Today, Africa looms as the greatest commercial, industrial and political prize in the world — Marcus Garvey
The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands — Richard Burton
I hope you have an experience that alters the course of your life because, after Africa, nothing has ever been the same — Suzanne Evans
A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree. One is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander — Roman Payne
The eye never forgets what the heart has seen — Africa Quote
People must feel that the natural world is important and valuable and beautiful and wonderful and an amazement and a pleasure — David Attenborough
One of the great things about travel is that you find out how many good, kind people there are — Edith Wharton
To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted — Bill Bryson
In Africa today, we recognise that trade and investment, and not aid, are pillars of development — Paul Kagame
In Africa, music is not an art form as much as it is a means of communication — Vernon Reid
Africa is not just about where you are born. For me, Africa is the whole continent; from south to north, to east to west — Angelique Kidjo
The richness of Africa, culturally, is vast. That’s the challenge that we have to face, because most of the time, people in the western world, their attention span is really narrow — Angelique Kidjo
The more Africa depends on aid the less opportunities it creates for its people — Benjamin Quansah
Africa doesn’t need strongmen, it needs strong institutions — Barack Obama
They say that somewhere in Africa the elephants have a secret grave where they go to lie down, unburden their wrinkled gray bodies, and soar away, light spirits at the end — Robert McCammon
Nature is the guardian of Africa. While the sun lights the African sky in day time, the moon begs the world to help her lighting Africa in the night — Munia Khan
Africa is always only portrayed as a continent of suffering, but most figures are vastly exaggerated — James Shikwati
Clouds come floating into my life no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add colour to my sunset sky — Rabindranath Tagore
Africa is an extraordinary opportunity at the moment — David Adjaye
Africa is one continent, one people and one nation — Kwame Nkrumah
The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it — George Kimble
Music is something I must do, business is something I need to do, and Africa is something I have to do. That’s the way it breaks down in my life — G Brundland
Let’s face it – think of Africa, and the first images that come to mind are of war, poverty, famine, and flies. How many of us really know anything at all about the truly great ancient African civilisations, which in their day, were just as splendid and glorious as any on the face of the earth? — Henry Gates
Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn — Ralph Emerson
I have loved no part of the world like this and I have loved no women as I love you. You’re my human Africa. I love your smell as I love these smells. I love your dark bush as I love the bush here, you change with the light as this place does, so that one all the time is loving something different and yet the same. I want to spill myself out into you as I want to die here — Graham Greene
If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness — Nelson Mandela
Most people write me off when they see me. They do not know my story. They say I am just an African. They judge me before they get to know me. What they do not know is the pride I have in the blood that runs through my veins; The pride I have in my rich culture and the history of my people; The pride I have in my strong family ties and the deep connection to my community; The pride I have in the African music, African art, and African dance — Idowu Koyenikan
Africa is less a wilderness than a repository of primary and fundamental values, and less a barbaric land than an unfamiliar voice — Quote about Africa
I believe there is no sickness of the heart too great it cannot be cured by a dose of Africa — John Hemingway
Africa changes you forever, like nowhere on earth. Once you have been there, you will never be the same — Brian Jackman
During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die ― Nelson Mandela.
To witness that calm rhythm of life revives our worn souls and recaptures a feeling of belonging to the natural world. No one can return from the Serengeti unchanged, for tawny lions will forever prowl our memory and great herds throng our imagination — George Schaller
When an elder is gone, a library is burnt to the ground — African proverb
Wisdom does not come overnight — Somali
You have little power over what’s not yours. — Zimbabwean proverb
To get lost is to learn the way — African saying
The eye never forgets what the heart has seen — African Proverb
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together — African Proverb
The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water — Cameroon
Where a woman rules, streams run uphill — Ethiopian proverb
Wisdom is like fire. People take it from others — Congolese
Only a wise person can solve a difficult problem — Akan
An army of sheep led by a lion can defeat an army of lions led by a sheep — Ghanaian
Knowledge without wisdom is like water in the sand — Guinean
A small house will hold a hundred friends — African proverb
In the moment of crisis, the wise build bridges and the foolish build dams — Nigerian
If you are filled with pride, then you will have no room for wisdom — African proverb
A wise person will always find a way — Tanzanian
Dine with a stranger but save your love for your family — Ethiopian proverb
Nobody is born wise — African proverb
A man who uses force is afraid of reasoning — Kenyan proverb
Wisdom is not like money to be tied up and hidden — Akan proverb
Learning expands great souls — Namibian proverb
One who causes others misfortune also teaches them wisdom — African quote
By crawling a child learns to stand — African proverb
Only a fool tests the depth of a river with both feet — Africa caption
If you carry the egg basket do not dance. — Ambede proverb
Do a good deed and throw it into the sea — Egyptian saying
If you close your eyes to facts, you will learn through accidents — African proverb
If I am in harmony with my family, that’s success — Ute proverb
A single bracelet does not jingle — Congolese proverb
He who learns, teaches — Ethiopian proverb
Wealth, if you use it, comes to an end; learning, if you use it, increases — Swahili proverb
By trying often, the monkey learns to jump from the tree — Buganda proverb
You always learn a lot more when you lose than when you win — African proverb
Two ants do not fail to pull one grasshopper — Tanzanian proverb
Show me your friend and I will show you your character — African proverb
Wisdom is like a baobab tree; no one individual can embrace it — Akan
If relatives help each other, what evil can hurt them? — African proverb
Traveling is learning — Kenyan Proverb
The wise create proverbs for fools to learn, not to repeat — African proverb
A family tie is like a tree, it can bend but it cannot break — African caption
What you help a child to love can be more important than what you help him to learn — African proverb
He who is destined for power does not have to fight for it — Ugandan proverb
Hold a true friend with both hands — African proverb
There can be no peace without understanding — Senegalese proverb
Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable — Bondei proverb
By the time the fool has learned the game, the players have dispersed — Ashanti proverb
What you learn is what you die with — Famous Africa quote
A leader who does not take advice is not a leader — Kenyan proverb
Don’t think there are no crocodiles just because the water’s calm — Malawian proverb
A single stick may smoke, but it will not burn — African proverb
Slander by the stream will be heard by the frogs. — Mozambican proverb
An intelligent enemy is better than a stupid friend — Senegalese proverb
Return to old watering holes for more than water; friends and dreams are there to meet you — African proverb
We desire to bequeath two things to our children; the first one is roots, the other one is wings — Sudanese
Because he lost his reputation, he lost a kingdom — Ethiopian proverb
A child is a child of everyone — Sudanese saying
If a bird does not fly, it goes to bed hungry — Akan proverb
No one has to point God out to a child – Ghanaian proverb
A large chair does not make a king — Sudanese proverb
Ashes fly back into the face of him who throws them — Nigerian proverb
You do not teach the paths of the forest to an old gorilla — Congolese proverb
When you follow the path of your Father, you learn to walk like him — Ashanti proverb
Instruction in youth is like engraving in stone — Moroccan Proverb
Ears that do not listen to advice, accompany the head when it is chopped off — African saying
Advice is a stranger; if he’s welcome he stays for the night; if not, he leaves the same day — Malagasy Proverb
Where there are experts there will be no lack of learners — Swahili Proverb
Peace is costly but it is worth the expense — Kenyan proverb
War has no eyes — Swahili saying
When a king has good counsellors, his reign is peaceful — Ashanti proverb
Peace does not make a good ruler — Botswana proverb
A fight between grasshoppers is a joy to the crow — Lesotho proverb
Milk and honey have different colors, but they share the same house peacefully — African proverb
When there is peace in the country, the chief does not carry a shield — Ugandan proverb
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far — West African proverb
One falsehood spoils a thousand truths — African proverb
He who thinks he is leading and has no one following him is only taking a walk — Malawian proverb
Where water is the boss there the land must obey — African proverb
Do not forget what is to be a sailor because of being a captain yourself — Tanzanian proverb
Without a leader, black ants are confused — Ugandan proverb
He who refuses to obey cannot command — Kenyan proverb
He who fears the sun will not become chief — Ugandan
If the cockroach wants to rule over the chicken, then it must hire the fox as a body-guard — Sierra Leone proverb
Unity is strength, division is weakness — Swahili proverb
A friend is someone you share the path with — African proverb
It takes a village to raise a child — African quote
Cross the river in a crowd and the crocodile won’t eat you — African proverb
Where there are many, nothing goes wrong — Swahili proverb
A family is like a forest, when you are outside it is dense, when you are inside you see that each tree has its place — Caption about Africa
If you can’t resolve your problems in peace, you can’t solve war — Somalian proverb
Bad friends will prevent you from having good friends — Gabon proverb
To be without a friend is to be poor indeed — Tanzanian proverb
A united family eats from the same plate — Baganda proverb
Brothers love each other when they are equally rich — Caption about Africa
The friends of our friends are our friends — Congolese proverb
There is no fool who is disowned by his family — African proverb
When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled — Swahili saying
Home affairs are not talked about on the public square — African proverb
The old woman looks after the child to grow its teeth and the young one in turn looks after the old woman when she loses her teeth — Akan proverb
When the music changes, so does the dance — Saying in Africa
When brothers fight to the death, a stranger inherits their father’s estate — Ibo proverb
He who earns calamity, eats it with his family — African caption
There is no day that goes without the moon and no day that goes without sunrise and sunset — African Proverb
Do not mistake a short man for a boy — African proverb
A close friend can become a close enemy — African proverb
When the shepherd comes home in peace, the milk is sweet — Ethiopian proverb
Birds sing not because they have answers but because they have songs — Quote Africa
Wisdom is wealth — Swahili
Between true friends even water drunk together is sweet enough — African proverb
Children are the reward of life — African quotes
A flea can trouble a lion more than a lion can trouble a flea — Kenyan
If you’re from Africa, I hope you realise what an incredible continent you get to call home and if you live elsewhere, I hope you get the opportunity to place your footsteps on this continent at least once in your lifetime.
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