Quotes from Julius Nyerere

We spoke and acted as if, given the opportunity for self-government, we would quickly create utopias. Instead injustice, even tyranny, is rampant.

A house should not be built so close to another that a chicken from one can lay an egg in the neighbor's yard, nor so far away that a child cannot shout to the yard of his neighbor.

Independence cannot be real if a nation depends upon gifts.

The greatest contraceptive one can have in the developing world is the knowledge that your children will live

We, in Africa, have no more need of being 'converted' to socialism than we have of being 'taught' democracy. Both are rooted in our past -- in the traditional society which produced us.

There is no time to waste. We must either unite now or perish.

African nationalism is meaningless, dangerous, anachronistic, if it is not, at the same time, pan-Africanism.

The education provided must therefore encourage the development in each citizen of three things; an inquiring mind; and ability to learn from what others do, and reject or adapt it to his own needs; and a basic confidence in his own position as a free and equal member of the society, who values others and is valued by them for what he does and not for what he obtains.

Hay quienes quieren llegar a la luna, mientras nosotros aún estamos tratando de llegar a la aldea

No nation has the right to make decisions for another nation; no people for another people.

In Tanganyika we believe that only evil, Godless men would make the color of a man's skin the criteria for granting him civil rights.

And just as, in the First Scramble for Africa, one tribe was divided against another tribe to make the division of Africa easier, in the Second Scramble for Africa one nation is going to be divided against another nation to make it easier to control Africa by making her weak and divided against herself

Moyo kabla ya silaha

We, in Africa, have no more need of being 'converted' to socialism than we have of being 'taught' democracy. Both are rooted in our past -- in the traditional society which produced us.

A nation which refuses to learn from foreign culture is nothing but a nation of idiots and lunatics... But to learn from other cultures does not mean we should abandon our own.

Sans unité, les peuples d'Afrique n'ont pas de futur, sauf comme perpétuelles et faibles victimes de l'impérialisme et de l'exploitation

The development of the peoples means a rebellion

Socialism, like democracy, is an attitude of mind

Our need is not for brakes to social change... -our lack of trained manpower and capital resources, and even our climate, act too effectively already

If you want to know one of my most fundamental convictions, it is that I am completely non-racialist. I do not understand racialism at all.

Will before weapons

Give them the education which will train their heads to refuse the wretchedness of mind and skill their hands to develop the resources of Africa.

Peace is born of hope, when hope is gone there will be social upheavals

One does not judge one's state of health by comparing it to that of a sick person