Patrice Lumumba Quotes

Our dearest wish perhaps, some may find it utopian is to found in the Congo a Nation in which differences of race and religion will melt away, a homogeneous society composed of Belgians and Congolese who with a single impulse will link their hearts to the destinies of the country.

At the moment when Congo reaches independence, the whole government wishes to pay solemn homage to the King of the Belgians, and to the noble people he represents for the work done here over three quarters of a century. I would not wish my feelings to be wrongly interpreted... Long live King Baudouin, Long live Belgium, Long live the independent Congo.

We are no longer your monkeys.

While our brothers in Kenya, Nyasa-land, Rhodesia, South Africa and Angola are still fighting for their freedom, look at the wonderful future that smiles at us.

I took the money not for myself, but for my political activities, I hurt no private individual, only the Belgian state, which at the time was my worst enemy, it had plunderd us, now i plunderd it.

Quoted in Il Congo di Lumumba e di Mulele.

The Soviet Union is the only great power whose position has reflected the will and wishes of our people. Therefore the Soviet Union proves to be the only great power that has supported the Congolese people in their struggle from the beginning.

A minimum of comfort is necessary for the practice of virtue.

Without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men.

No one is perfect in this imperfect world.

No Congolese worthy of the name will ever to be able to forget that this independence has been won through a struggle in which we did not spare our energy and our blood... We have known ironies, insults, and blows which we had to undergo morning, noon and night because we were Negroes. We have seen our lands spoiled in the name of laws which only recognized the right of the strongest. We have known laws which differed according to whether it dealt with a black man or a white. We have known the atrocious sufferings of those who were imprisoned for their political opinions or religious beliefs, and of those exiled in their own country. Their fate was worse than death itself. Who will forget the rifle-fire from which so many of our brothers perished, or the jails in to which were brutally thrown those who did not want to submit to a regime of justice, oppression and exploitation which were the means the colonialists employed to dominate us?