41 Quotes by Aimé Césaire

measured by the clock click of the serpent-minutethe explosionafter which it is proper to appreciate thatthe brutal fist of the terrorist crack of dawn has justplanted at the top of the most forgotten pouiits adornment of fire its dolmen of blood its flag of rage and renewal

your facelike a village asleep at the bottom of a lakewhich is reborn to daylight from the grass and from the yeargerminates

. . . car il n'est point vrai que l'oeuvre de l'homme est finie que nous n'avons rien à faire au monde que nous parasitons le monde qu'il suffit que nous nous mettions au pas du monde mais l'oeuvre de l'homme vient seulement de commencer et il reste à l'homme à conquérir toute interdiction immobilisée aux coins de sa ferveur et aucune race ne possède le monopole de la beauté, de l'intelligence, de la force . . .

I have a different idea of a universal. It is of a universal rich with all that is particular, rich with all the particulars there are, the deepening of each particular, the coexistence of them all.

Reason, I sacrifice you to the evening breeze.

It is no use painting the foot of the tree white, the strength of the bark cries out from beneath the paint.

Poetic knowledge is born in the great silence of scientific knowledge.

Communism has served us ill in having us swap a living brotherhood for what looks to have the features of the coldest of all chill abstractions.

I would rediscover the secret of great communications and great combustions. I would say storm. I would say river. I would say tornado. I would say leaf. I would say tree. I would be drenched by all rains, moistened by all dews. I would roll like frenetic blood on the slow current of the eye of words turned into mad horses into fresh children into clots into curfew into vestiges of temples into precious stones remote enough to discourage miners. Whoever would not understand me would not understand any better the roaring of a tiger.