Kenya Quotes - Quotations From Kenyans, About Kenya

Here's a collection of Kenya quotes - quotations from famous and unknown Kenyans, and quotes about Kenya by others.



I don't necessarily agree with all these quotes. It's just that I believe there is some reason to include them here - be it that they're funny, worth to remember, revealing about the subject or about the speaker, or simply right on. If you know of any Kenya quotes that should be added here, just drop me a message.

Kenya Quotes

"We're small because when they took them (Africans) into slavery, they took the big ones." – Mwanasiti, a Kenyan woman, accounting for the small size and height of Kenyans

"In Kenya you've got the great birds and monkeys leaping through the trees overhead. It's a chance to remember what the world is really like." – British actress Joanna Lumley

"Muzungu [white man] is great - so full of wonders. We are on a piece of metal and we’re not sinking." - A Kenyan woman onboard the South Mombasa ferry

Masai women in Masai Mara National Reserve, Rift Valley
Kenya art poster - View at Allposters.com

"Life is simple. You are born, you do your thing, and you die. It's easy. Anyone can do it." - Joan K., a young Kenyan business woman commenting on people who are confused about life

"My name is Maina, the opposite of major." - Maina, on how to pronounce his name

"Rioting is a Kenyan thing. If they didn't do it, they'd be Tanzanian." - Dr. Mavura, from Tanzania

"Sugar, maize, soap, and cooking fat." - Beatrice, a Kenyan woman, on being asked about the most important needs in life

"The new Kenyans. There are always new Kenyans." - Famous runner Noureddine Morceli, 1988, when asked if he feared any other runners (Kenyans are among the world’s best runners)

"When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, we had the Bible in our hand, and they had the land." – Jomo Kenyatta, fist president of Kenya

"When my father arrived in Kenya, he had found the Kikuyu way of life similar to that of the British at the time the Romans invaded England 2,000 years ago." – Famous British-Kenyan archaeologist Louis Leakey

"I can't think of any other region in the world [Kenya] which is such a vast source of fossils." – Richard Leakey, son of Louis Leakey and an accomplished archaeologist himself

"Africa, amongst the continents, will teach it to you: that God and the Devil are one, the majesty coeternal, not two uncreated but one uncreated, and the Natives neither confounded the persons nor divided the substance." – Danish author Karen Blixen, who lived in Kenya for a large part of her life

"There is something about safari life that makes you forget all your sorrows and feel as if you had drunk half a bottle of champagne - bubbling over with heartfelt gratitude for being alive. One only feels really free when one can go in whatever direction one pleases over the plains, to get to the river at sundown and pitch one's camp, with the knowledge that one can fall asleep beneath other trees, with another view before one, the next night." - Karen Blixen

"All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet. " – Prof. Wangari Maathai, a former Kenyan Government Minister and the first African woman to win a Nobel Prize

"African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence." - Wangari Maathai

"Kenyans must learn on how to believe in themselves and do away with this culture of dependency on donors for everything." - Mutahi Kagwe, Kenyan Minister for Information and Communications

"I knew him (Mwai Kibaki) when we were young boys and he was brilliant. You could tell by the way he took care of his father's sheep." - Kenyan voter Daniel Gitu, aged 70

"Leadership is a privilege to better the lives of others. It is not an opportunity to satisfy personal greed." – President Mwai Kibaki, later accused of fraud and self-enrichment

"Corruption will now cease to be a way of life in Kenya." – President Kibaki, later accused of corruption and election fraud, upon becoming President

"The vote has shown clearly that the majority are opposed to the proposed constitution. As we had said before, my government will respect the wishes of Kenyans." – President Kibaki, upon losing the referendum on the new constitution in 2005, later accused of rigging the December 2007 elections

"The people of Kenya, the political leaders and the parties deserve to be congratulated on their demonstrated belief in, and commitment to, democratic values and ethics, in particular to free, fair, peaceful and transparent elections." - Commonwealth election observers on the 2002 elections (the opinions of international election observers on the 2007 elections were slightly different...)

"(Longtime Kenyan strongman Daniel Arap) Moi had no concern whatsoever about the poverty of his people and I doubt very much that he has actually ever walked in this very place (Nairobi slum of Kibera)." - David Mugonyi, Kenyan clerical officer

"We want the economy revived, but not at the expense of our sovereignty." - Kenyan political analyst, Mutahi Ngunyi commenting on the attention paid to donors and foreign investors by the government and President at the expense of Kenyan politics and people, Sunday Nation 23/3/03

"Kenya has become a country of ten millionaires and ten million beggars." - Kenyan politican J.M. Kariuki, assassinated in 1975

If you know of any other Kenya quotes that should be added here, drop me a line.

If you like this page about Kenya quotes, have a look at my wordly wisdom page with proverbs from Kenya.

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