Steve Biko Quotes

19 Sourced Quotes

The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

Steve Biko
You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway.

Steve Biko
The philosophy of Black Consciousness therefore expresses group pride and the determination of the black to rise and attain the envisaged self.... At the heart of this kind of thinking is the realization by blacks that the most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

Steve Biko
Even today, we are still accused of racism. This is a mistake. We know that all interracial groups in South Africa are relationships in which whites are superior, blacks inferior. So as a prelude whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior. Same with blacks. They must be made to realize that they are also human, not inferior.

Steve Biko
What we want is not black visibility but real black participation.

Steve Biko
The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion.

Steve Biko
Sure there are a few good whites just as much as there are a few bad Blacks. However what we are concerned here with is group attitudes and group politics. The exception does not make a lie or the rule - it merely substantiates it.

Steve Biko
A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine.

Steve Biko
If you want to say something radical, you should dress conservative.

Steve Biko
We must realise that prophetic cry of black students: "Black man you are on your own!"

Steve Biko
Apartheid — both petty and grand — is obviously evil. Nothing can justify the arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.

Steve Biko
In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift—a more human face.

Steve Biko
It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.

Steve Biko
The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

Steve Biko
The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.

Steve Biko
Listen, if you guys want to do this your way, you have got to handcuff me and bind my feet together, so that I can't respond. If you allow me to respond, I'm certainly going to respond. And I'm afraid you may have to kill me in the process even if it's not your intention.

Steve Biko
The white strategy so far has been to systematically break down the resistance of the blacks to the point where the latter would accept crumbs from the white table. This we have shown we reject unequivocally; and now the stage is therefore set for a very interesting turn of events.

Steve Biko
The system concedes nothing without demand, for it formulates its very method of operation on the basis that the ignorant will learn to know, the child will grow into an adult and therefore demands will begin to be made. It gears itself to resist demands in whatever way it sees fit.

Steve Biko
The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country. Not so long ago this used to be freely said in parliament, even about the educational system of the black people. It is still said even today, although in a much more sophisticated language. To a large extent the evil-doers have succeeded in producing at the output end of their machine a kind of black man who is man only in form. This is the extent to which the process of dehumanization has advanced.

Steve Biko