Quotes from Aimé Césaire

Haiti où la négritude se mit debout pour la première fois et dit qu'elle croyait à son humanité.

ma chère penchons sur les filons géologiques (my dear let us lean on geographical veins)

At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.

like the scorpion's question mark drawn in the pollen on the canvas of the sky and of our brains at midnight

Beware of crossing your arms in the sterile attitude of the spectator, because life is not a spectacle, because a a sea of sorrows is not a proscenium, because a man who screams is not a dancing bear.

Je viendrais à ce pays mien et je lui dirais: "Embrassez-moi sans crainte... Et si je ne sais que parler, c'est pour vous que je parlerai

Ma bouche sera la bouche des malheurs qui n'ont point de bouche, ma voix, la liberté de celles qui s'affaissent au cachot du désespoir.

It is not a dead society that we want to revive. We leave that to those who go in for exoticism.

I have made a pact with the night, I have felt it softly healing me

It takes all kinds to make a world.

Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge.

car il n'est point vrai que l'oeuvre de l'homme est finie que nous n'avons rien à faire au monde que nous parasitons le monde qu'il suffit que nous nous mettions au pas du monde mais l'oeuvre de l'homme vient seulement de commencer et il reste à l'homme à conquérir toute interdiction immobilisée aux coins de sa ferveur et aucune race ne possède le monopole de la beauté, de l'intelligence, de la force . . .

the forest remembers that the last word can only be the flaming cry of the bird of ruins in the bowl of the storm

Even then Communists would reproach me for speaking of the Negro problem—they called it my racism. But I would answer: Marx is alright, but we need to complete Marx. I felt that the emancipation of the Negro consisted of more than just a political emancipation.

There are a whole lot of things whose names I do not know and I'd like to tell you about them in the sky your hair solemnly draws away kinds of rain one no longer sees nuts Saint Elmo's fire sun lames whispered nights cathedrals too which are the carcasses of large gnawed horses spat by the sea from far away but still worshiped by people a whole lot of forgotten things a whole lot of dreamed things

And above all, my body as well as my soul, beware of assuming the sterile attitude of a spectator, for life is not a spectacle, a sea of miseries is not a proscenium, a man screaming is not a dancing bear….

my negritude riddles with holesthe dense affliction of its worthy patience.

Je viendrais à ce pays mien et je lui dirais : "Embrassez-moi sans crainte... Et si je ne sais que parler, c'est pour vous que je parlerai".

A man screaming is not a dancing bear. Life is not a spectacle.

Africa, help me to go home, carry me like an aged child in your arms. Undress me and wash me. Strip me of all of these garments, strip me as a man strips off dreams when the dawn comes. . . .

Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge.

Reason, I sacrifice you to the evening breeze.

It is no use painting the foot of the tree white, the strength of the bark cries out from beneath the paint.

The weakness of most men they do not know how to become a stone or tree.