SOME WISE QUOTES

If you try to put social and cultural development ahead of economic development, it

doesn't work. You have to do it all together.

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence

Nothing is impossible; the word itself says 'I'm possible'!

Never try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.

The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.

We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone.

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody

else.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going

Caged Bird

The free bird leaps on the back of the wind and floats downstream till the current ends and dips his wings in the orange sun rays and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks down his narrow cage can seldom see through his bars of rage his wings are clipped and

his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with fearful trill of the things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream his wings are clipped and his feet are tied so he opens his throat to sing.

Million Man March Poem

The night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark, And the walls have been steep.

Emancipation

No rack can torture me, My soul's at liberty Behind this mortal

And an orator said, "Speak to us of Freedom."

And he answer

Freedom, as every schoolboy knows, Once shrieked as Kosciusko fell; On every wind, indeed, that blows I hear her yell.

How delicious is the winning Of a kiss at love's beginning, When two mutual hearts are sighing For the knot there's no untying!

What freeman knoweth freedom? Never he Whose father's father through long lives have reigned O'er kingdoms which mere heritage attained. Though from his youth to age he roam as free

I Prefer the Gorgeous Freedom

I prefer the gorgeous freedom, And I fly to lands of grace, Where in wide and clear meadows All is good, as dreams, and blest

A Sad State Of Freedom

You waste the attention of your eyes, the glittering labour of your hands, and knead the dough enough for dozens of loaves of which you'll taste not a morsel;

Freedom on the Wallaby Australia's a big country An' Freedom's humping bluey, An' Freedom's on the wallaby Oh! don't you hear 'er cooey? She's just begun to boomerang, She'll knock the tyrants silly, She's goin' to light another fire And boil another billy.

Our fathers toiled for bitter bread While loafers thrived beside 'em, But food to eat and clothes to wear, Their native land denied 'em. An' so they left their native land In spite of their devotion, An' so they came, or if they stole, Were sent across the ocean.

Then Freedom couldn't stand the glare O' Royalty's regalia, She left the loafers where they were, An' came out to Australia. But now across the mighty main The chains have come bind her –

She little thought to see again The wrongs she left behind her.

Our parents toil'd to make a home – Hard grubbin 'twas an' clearin' – They wasn't crowded much with lords When they was pioneering. But now that we have made the land A garden full of promise, Old Greed must crook 'is dirty hand And come ter take it from us.

So we must fly a rebel flag, As others did before us, And we must sing a rebel song And join in rebel chorus. We'll make the tyrants feel the sting O' those that they would throttle; They needn't say the fault is ours If blood should stain the wattle!

It all started as a vision of one man,A dream of one son,A son of Ghana, a Nkrumah who sang a songwhose words were written with the blood of our brothers sailed offto plantations as slaves to white masters.A song whose rhythm and tune was hummedby the cries of our peopleFeet shuffling, hands trembling, mouths begging

We don’t know them!We don’t know the freedom fighters

The rhythm of whips cracking on their backsThe sound of gunshots reigning in the dull yet sunny days,Dark, yet moonlit nights.The sounds had become a dirge to their earsMaafa, Maafa

his was a song whose commas and full stops,verses and chorus was the stamping of weary dusty feetforcibly led into crammed concentration and detention campsto die of hunger, thirst,Informers, turncoats or home guards

His dream’s song like a bush fire, spread across the land,Across the great Nile, Lake Tanganyika, the Zambezi and ChaniaKingston, Harlem, the Caribbean.The strained tunes of this sweet song became a spellIts spirit haunting Edward WilmotW.E.Dubois, Muamar GhadafiHis majesty Emperor Haille sellasie, Marcus Garvey,Julius NyerereMalcolm X, Fela Kuti,The fathers of Pan-Africanism.

This was a song of painThe Pain of being an AfricanA black man, a native

The pain of being un civilizeduneducated, uncultured

The pain of being colonized by a fellow human beingwhose religion, traditions and languagewas no more superior than our own.Maafa, maafa

They sang a song of strengthA song of unityA song of one enemyA song of liberationAfrica’s Liberation

Like a chain, their weakness,Would be their greatest strengthBeing black, being African

This song gave them a reason to unite, to fightTo think as one country, one man, one mind

 This song was the cry ofA unified Africa