Roméo Dallaire · 562 pages
Rating: (9.1K votes)
“I know there is a God because in Rwanda I shook hands with the devil. I have seen him, I have smelled him and I have touched him. I know the devil exists and therefore I know there is a God.”
― Roméo Dallaire, quote from Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
“Many signs point to the fact that the youth of the Third World will no longer tolerate living in circumstances that give them no hope for the future. From the young boys I met in the demobilization camps in Sierra Leone to the suicide bombers of Palestine and Chechnya, to the young terrorists who fly planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, we can no longer afford to ignore them. We have to take concrete steps to remove the causes of their rage, or we have to be prepared to suffer the consequences.”
― Roméo Dallaire, quote from Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
“If I decide to make a career in the army, he said, I would never be rich, but I would live one of the most satisfying lives there was to be had. Then
he warned me that satisfaction would come at a great cost to me and any family I might have. I should never expected to be thanked; a soldier, if he was going to be content, had to understand that no civilian, no government,
sometimes not even the army itself, would recognize the true nature of the scarifies he made.”
― Roméo Dallaire, quote from Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
“I have often been criticized for being an 'emotional' leader, for not being macho enough, but even during this early stage in my career, I believed that the magic of command lies in openness, in being both sympathetic to the troops and at the same time being apart, in always projecting supreme confidence in my own ability and in theirs to accomplish whatever task is set for us.”
― Roméo Dallaire, quote from Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
“The global village is deteriorating at a rapid pace, and in the children of the world the result is rage. It is the rage I saw in the eyes of the teenage Interahamwe militiamen in Rwanda, it is the rage I sensed in the hearts of the children of Sierra Leone, it is the rage I felt in crowds of ordinary civilians in Rwanda, and it is the rage that resulted in September 11. Human beings who have no rights, no security, no future, no hope and no means to survive are a desperate group who will do desperate things to take what they believe they need and deserve.”
― Roméo Dallaire, quote from Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
“I was on the ground, I was in command, I had been given the mission, and I took the decision.”
― Roméo Dallaire, quote from Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
“Still, at its heart the Rwandan story is the story of the failure of humanity to heed a call for help from an endangered people.
The international community, of which the UN is only a symbol, failed to move beyond self-interest for the sake of Rwanda. While most nations agreed that something should be done they all had an excuses why they should not be the ones to do it. As a result, the UN was denied the political will and material mean to prevent the tragedy.”
― Roméo Dallaire, quote from Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
“Still, I did not regret for a moment leaving the bright lights of Manhattan behind in favour of night skies so dark the stars seemed close enough to be street lights. In the recycled cabin air of the long flight back, I physically longed for Rwanda, its rich red earth, the smell of its wood fires and its vibrant humanity.”
― Roméo Dallaire, quote from Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
“The people of Rwanda were not an insignificant black mass living in abject poverty in a place of no consequence. They were individuals like myself, like my family, with every right and expectation of any human who is a member of our tortured race. I was determined to persevere.”
― Roméo Dallaire, quote from Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda
Roméo Dallaire
Born place: in Denekamp, Netherlands
Born date June 25, 1946
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“Eli Lazaroff stepped into the arena, looking more like a librarian than a warrior.”
― Bella Forrest, quote from A Shade of Blood
“Whatever it is you want, whatever it is you need, I suggest you go after it. Sitting back and pretending otherwise will get you nowhere in life, boy. And if you ever need to talk, about anything, you know your mother and I will always listen.”
― Nicole Edwards, quote from Travis
“I'm not one of those cool, creative kids in my art class who make skirts out of trash bags and paint in crazy colours.”
― Jenn Bennett, quote from The Anatomical Shape of a Heart
“The panicked feeling of a guilty conscience never squeezes at your heart or wakes you in the middle of the night. Despite your lifestyle, you never feel irresponsible, neglectful, or so much as embarrassed, although for the sake of appearances, sometimes you pretend that you do. For example, if you are a decent observer of people and what they react to, you may adopt a lifeless facial expression, say how ashamed of your life you are, and talk about how rotten you feel. This you do only because it is more convenient to have people think you are depressed than it is to have them shouting at you all the time, or insisting that you get a job. You notice that people who do have a conscience feel guilty when they harangue someone they believe to be “depressed” or “troubled.” As a matter of fact, to your further advantage, they often feel obliged to take care of such a person.”
― Martha Stout, quote from The Sociopath Next Door
“Checking a box on a form for race—"Caucasian," "Hispanic," "African-American," "Native American," or "Asian-American"—is untenable and ridiculous. For one thing, "American" is not a race, so labels such as "Asian-American" and "African-American" are still exhibits of our confusion of culture and race. For another thing, how far back does one go in history? Native Americans are really Asians, if you go back more than twenty or thirty thousand years to before they crossed the Bering land bridge between Asia and America. And Asians, several hundred thousand years ago probably came out of Africa, so we should really replace "Native American" with "African-Asian-Native American." Finally, if the Out of Africa (single racial origin) theory holds true, then all modern humans are from Africa. (Cavalli-Sforza now thinks this may have been as recently as seventy thousand years ago.) Even if that theory gives way to the Candelabra (multiple racial origins) theory, ultimately all hominids came from Africa, and therefore everyone in America should simply check the box next to "African-American.”
― Michael Shermer, quote from Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
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