Steven Biko Quotes

Let us turn our thoughts today to Martin Luther King and recognize that there are ties between us, all men and women living on the Earth. Ties of hope and love, sister and brotherhood, that we are bound together in our desire to see the world become a place in which our children can grow free and strong. We are bound together by the task that stands before us and the road that lies ahead. We are bound and we are bound.

Our daily deeds as ordinary South Africans must produce an actual South African reality that will reinforce humanity's belief in justice, strengthen its confidence in the nobility of the human soul, and sustain all our hopes for a glorious life for all.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Our Christian civilization will have to Christianize itself in a hurry. It will have to dedicate itself to the proposition that men are men before they are Englishmen, businessmen, workingmen, or Americans, and that all men are brothers.... This proposition, always popular on Sundays, requires the subordination of Americanism to Humanity.

Freedom is indivisible; the chains on any one of my people were the chains on all of them, the chains on all of my people were the chains on me.

Friends, Comrades and fellow South Africans. I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom for all. I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the remaining years of my life in your hands.

Quote words that affirm all men and women are your brothers and sisters.

Our march to freedom is irreversible. We must not allow fear to stand in our way.

I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.

The victory of democracy in South Africa is the common achievement of all humanity.

Every nation is destined, by the law of God and humanity, to form a free and equal community of brothers.

Whatever the color of a man's skin, we are all mankind. So every denial of freedom, of equal opportunity for a livelihood, or for an education, diminishes me.

I have defended democracy, human rights, and brotherhood between peoples. And I'll keep doing so for as long as I live.

When we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

There's only one race - it's human. We are all brothers and sisters.

I have always held those political opinions which point to the universal brotherhood of man, no matter in what rank of life he may have taken his origin.

No matter what vision one has of South Africa, the first thing that must be done is to destroy racism.

Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul, when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.

Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.

Until we are all free, we are none of us free.

Nelson Mandela is physically separated from us, but his soul and spirit will never die. He belongs to the whole world because he is an icon of equality, freedom and love, the values we need all the time everywhere.

If we desire a society in which men are brothers, then we must act towards one another with brotherhood. If we can build such a society, then we would have achieved the ultimate goal of human freedom.

Education is a human right with immense power to transform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.

Rosa Parks will be remembered for her lasting contributions to society. Her legacy lives on in the continued struggle for civil rights around the world. She will be missed.

Equality for everybody is great. That would be amazing.