“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.”

“To speak...means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.”

“A man who has a language consequently possesses the world expressed and implied by that language.”

“The claim to a national culture in the past does not only rehabilitate that nation and serve as a justification for the hope of a future national culture. In the sphere of psycho-affective equilibrium it is responsible for an important change in the native. Perhaps we haven't sufficiently demonstrated that colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native's brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it. This work of devaluing pre-colonial history takes on a dialectical significance today.”

“Mastery of language affords remarkable power.”

“The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country's cultural standards.”

“When we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for a variety of reasons, we can no longer breathe”