Frantz Fanon quotes - page 2

Frantz Fanon was a Martinican psychiatrist, philosopher, and revolutionary writer known for his analysis of colonialism and its psychological impacts. His works, such as "Black Skin, White Masks" and "The Wretched of the Earth," have had a profound influence on post-colonial studies and liberation movements worldwide. He brought attention to issues of identity, oppression, and resistance among colonized peoples. Here are 56 of his quotes:

I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization.

Frantz Fanon

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

Frantz Fanon

Today I believe in the possibility of love; that is why I endeavor to trace its imperfections, its perversions.

Frantz Fanon

I, the man of color, want only this: That the tool never possess the man. That the enslavement of man by man cease forever. That is, of one by another. That it be possible for me to discover and to love man, wherever he may be.

Frantz Fanon

However painful it may be for me to accept this conclusion, I am obliged to state it: for the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.

Frantz Fanon

There is a point at which methods devour themselves.

Frantz Fanon

The black is a black man; that is, as the result of a series of aberrations of affect, he is rooted at the core of a universe from which he must be extricated.

Frantz Fanon

From birth it is clear to him that this narrow world, strewn with prohibitions, can only be called in question by absolute violence.

Frantz Fanon

The black man wants to be white. The white man slaves to reach a human level.

Frantz Fanon

The serf is in essence different from the knight, but a reference to divine right is necessary to legitimize this statutory defense.

Frantz Fanon

The landing of the white man on Madagascar inflicted injury without measure. The consequences of that irruption of Europeans onto Madagascar were not psychological alone, since, as every authority has observed, there are inner relationships between consciousness and the social context.

Frantz Fanon

Man is motion toward the world and toward his like. A movement of aggression, which leads to enslavement or to conquest; a movement of love, a gift of self, the ultimate stage of what by common accord is called ethical orientation. Every consciousness seems to have the capacity to demonstrate these two components, simultaneously or alternatively. The person I love will strengthen me by endorsing my assumption of my manhood, while the need to earn the admiration or the love of others will erect a value-making superstructure on my whole vision of the world.

Frantz Fanon

By refusing to multiply our element, we take the risk of not setting a limit to our field; for it is essential to convey to the black man that an attitude of rupture has never saved anyone.

Frantz Fanon

At risk of arousing the resentment of my colored brothers, I will say that the black is not a man. There is a zone of nonbeing, an extraordinary sterile and arid region, an utterly naked declivity where an authentic upheaval can be born. In most cases, the black man lacks the advantage of being able to accomplish this descent into real hell.

Frantz Fanon

I said just above that South Africa has a racist structure. Now I shall go farther and say that Europe has a racist structure.

Frantz Fanon

We are nothing on earth if we are not in the first place the slaves of a cause, the cause of the peoples, the cause of justice and liberty.

Frantz Fanon

When people like me, they like me "in spite of my color." When they dislike me; they point out that it isn't because of my color. Either way, I am locked in to the infernal circle.

Frantz Fanon

When the native hears a speech about Western culture he pulls out his knife-or at least he makes sure it is within reach. The violence with which the supremacy of white values is affirmed and the aggressiveness which has permeated the victory of these values over the ways of life and of thought of the native mean that, in revenge, the native laughs in mockery when Western values are mentioned in front of him.

Frantz Fanon

When we revolt it's not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.

Frantz Fanon

A white man addressing a Negro behaves exactly like an adult with a child and starts smirking, whispering, patronizing, cozening. It is not one white man I have watched, but hundreds; and I have not limited my investigation to any one class but, if I may claim an essentially objective position, I have made a point of observing such behavior in physician, policemen, employers.

Frantz Fanon

For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.

Frantz Fanon

At risk of arousing the resentment of my colored brothers, I will say that the black is not a man.

Frantz Fanon