Miriam Makeba Quotes
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For instance, we're always fighting amongst each other. Who gives us the arms? And then we become indebted to wherever we are buying them from - with what? The very resources we need to keep there.
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Girls are the future mothers of our society, and it is important that we focus on their well-being.
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When I was young, I never bought records because my brother Joseph played saxophone and had a record player. I loved listening to his records: The Dorsey Brothers, Duke Ellington, all the big American jazz bands, and vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald, Ernestine Anderson, and Kitty White, a singer from the US who was a friend of Nina Simone. Nobody in America seems to know about her, but she was quite popular in South Africa.
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Everybody now admits that apartheid was wrong, and all I did was tell the people who wanted to know where I come from how we lived in South Africa. I just told the world the truth. And if my truth then becomes political, I can't do anything about that.
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He Belafonte was a good teacher and looked after me. He said, 'You have such great talent, you must try not to be a tornado - be like a submarine. It was good advice when I found myself speaking at the UN Committee Against Apartheid and then the UN General Assembly.
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I ask you and all the leaders of the world: Would you act differently, would you keep silent and do nothing if you were in our place? Would you not resist if you were allowed no rights in your own country because the color of your skin is different to that of the rulers, and if you were punished for even asking for equality? I appeal to you, and through you to all the countries of the world, to do everything you can to stop the coming tragedy. I appeal to you to save the lives of our leaders, to empty the prisons of all those who should never have been there.
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I look at the past and I see myself.
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I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa and the people without even realising.
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Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them
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Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way so you won't get run over.
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The conqueror writes history, they came, they conquered and they write. You don't expect the people who came to invade us to tell the truth about us.
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I'm not a politician; I am a singer. Long ago, they said, 'That one, she sings politics.' I don't sing politics; I merely sing the truth.
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It's a really unfair world because life is, where I am; all day long we listen to American music. So I don't see why the radios in the U.S. cannot even put aside one hour a day just to play music that is not American.
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I will probably die singing.
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I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them.
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The tragedy of civil wars in countries like Angola and Mozambique is that they left many civilians maimed. Poverty is the reason HIV/AIDS spread so rapidly in the African townships and slums. Poverty is the real killer.
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Age is wisdom if one has lived ones life properly.
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You are damned and praised, or encouraged or discouraged by those who listen to you, and those who come to applaud you. And to me, those people are very important.
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There are a lot of homes for boys, but very few for girls, that is why I chose to do for girls.
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And I believe that it becomes a troubled continent because there are those who must always cause confusion so that we do not keep these natural resources.
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Belafonte sent his people to pick me up and I went back and shook his hand, then went back to my little flat. I was very happy to have met a president of the United States - little me!
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People in the United States still have a 'Tarzan' movie view of Africa. That's because in the movies all you see are jungles and animals . . . We too watch television and listen to the radio and go to dances and fall in love.
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If given a choice, I would have certainly selected to be what I am: one of the oppressed instead of one of the oppressors.
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Be careful, think about the effect of what you say. Your words should be constructive, bring people together, not pull them apart.