Quotes from Congo: The Epic History of a People

“The fact that they did not ask for political power, however, did not mean that they were happy as ever. The native’s political apathy was more an indicator of a lack of education than of any surplus of satisfaction. In”
― David Van Reybrouck, quote from Congo: The Epic History of a People

“But it was definitely a hecatomb, a slaughter on a staggering scale that was not intentional, but that could have been recognized much earlier as the collateral damage of a perfidious, rapacious policy of exploitation, a living sacrifice on the altar of the pathological pursuit of profit.”
― David Van Reybrouck, quote from Congo: The Epic History of a People

“Early anthropology was not at all seen as art for art’s sake; it was intended to facilitate the colonizer’s work.”
― David Van Reybrouck, quote from Congo: The Epic History of a People

“Scientists were the embodiment of this new-fangled sobriety—impartial, businesslike, colorless, and reliable. Or so people assumed. For in actual practice, it was their supposed impartiality that allowed them to gain so much influence. One”
― David Van Reybrouck, quote from Congo: The Epic History of a People

“Mission schools were factories for tribal prejudice. Children who were not allowed to leave their villages were suddenly told that the Bakongo lived on the other side of their vast country and what they were to think of them.”
― David Van Reybrouck, quote from Congo: The Epic History of a People

“came from the mines in Kivu.42 The area around the”
― David Van Reybrouck, quote from Congo: The Epic History of a People

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Popular quotes

“Galling as it may be to be helpless to redress the crying injustices of the past, symbolic expiation in the present can only create new injustices among the living and new problems for the future, when newborn babies enter the world with pre-packaged grievances against other babies born the same day. Both have their future jeopardized, not only by their internal strife but also by the increased vulnerability of disunited society to external dangers from nations and from international terrorist networks.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Black Rednecks and White Liberals

“Just try and live. Try and be happy. Or else, what’s the fucking point?”
― Tillie Cole, quote from Sweet Soul

“One night, as I cooked dinner in our home on the zoo grounds, I brooded over my troubles. I didn’t want to spend the evening feeling sorry for myself, so I thought about Steve out in the back, fire-gazing. He was a very lucky man, because for Steve, fire-gazing literally meant getting to build a roaring fire and sitting beside it, to contemplate life.
Suddenly I heard him come thundering up the front stairs. He burst wild-eyed into the kitchen. He’s been nailed by a snake, I thought immediately. I didn’t know what was going on.
“I know what we have to do!” he said, extremely excited.
He pulled me into the living room, sat me down, and took my hands in his. Looking intensely into my eyes, he said, “Babe, we’ve got to have children.”
Wow, I thought, that must have been some fire.
“Ok-aaay,” I said.
“You don’t understand, you don’t understand!” he said, trying to catch me up to his thoughts. “Everything we’ve been working for, the zoo that we’ve been building up, all of our efforts to protect wildlife, it will all stop with us!”
As with every good idea that came into his head, Steve wanted to act on it immediately. Just take it in stride, I said to myself. But he was so sincere. We’d talked about having children before, but for some reason it hit him that the time was now.
“We have got to have children,” he said. “I know that if we have kids, they will carry on when we’re gone.”
“Great,” I said. “Let’s get right on that.”
Steve kept pacing around the living room, talking about all the advantages of having kids--how I’d been so passionate about carrying on with the family business back in Oregon, and how he felt the same way about the zoo. He just knew our kids would feel the same too.
I said, “You know, there’s no guarantee that we won’t have a son who grows up to be a shoe salesman in Malaysia.”
“Come off the grass,” Steve said. “Any kid of ours is going to be a wildlife warrior.”
I thought of the whale calves following their mamas below the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight and prepared myself for a new adventure with Steve, maybe the greatest adventure of all.”
― Terri Irwin, quote from Steve & Me

“And off we go, out onto the highway looking for a little fun. Perhaps a flatbed truck loaded with human cadavers will explode in front of a Star Trek reunion. One can only dream and hope.”
― George Carlin, quote from When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?

“Did you love Paul Ivory?"
"Yes."
"I suppose it ended badly."
"Yes."
"You must have been very unhappy."
"I died, and Adam resurrected me.”
― Shirley Hazzard, quote from The Transit of Venus

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.