41 Quotes by Aimé Césaire

I have made a pact with the night, I have felt it softly healing me,

Beware of crossing your arms in the sterile attitude of the spectator, because life is not a spectacle, because a a sea of sorrows is not a proscenium, because a man who screams is not a dancing bear.

ma chère penchons sur les filons géologiques (my dear let us lean on geographical veins)

A man screaming is not a dancing bear. Life is not a spectacle.

Haiti où la négritude se mit debout pour la première fois et dit qu'elle croyait à son humanité.

the thick stream of air hauled toward the summitsfirst the great horses of noise reared against the skythen sluggishly the great limp octopus of smokea derisory spitter injecting the night withthe insolent perfume of a citronella lamp and a wind swept down on the islandsto be riddled by the suspect violence of the locusts . . .

And if all I know how to do is speak, it is for you that I shall speak. My lips shall speak for miseries that have no mouth, my voice shall be the liberty of those who languish in the dungeon of despair… And above all my body as well as my soul, beware of folding your arms in the sterile attitude of spectator, for life is not a spectacle, for a sea of pain is not a proscenium.

like the scorpion's question markdrawn in the pollen on the canvas of the sky and of our brains at midnight

the forest remembers that the last word can only bethe flaming cry of the bird of ruins in the bowl of the storm