Patrice Lumumba

We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and free and liberated people from every corner of the world will always be found at the side of the Congolese.

The day will come when history will speak.

Neither brutality nor cruelty nor torture will ever bring me to ask for mercy.

Dead, living, free, or in prison on the orders of the colonialists, it is not I who counts. It is the Congo, it is Africa.

The colonialists have distorted everything to justify their domination.

We are not beggars. We are a great people.

The colonialists have turned our brothers into instruments of their domination.

I do not know what history will say of us, but I know that it will say that we were not cowards.

The colonialists have made us strangers in our own country.

We are not Communists, Catholics, or Socialists. We are African nationalists.

The colonialists have only left in order to change their tactics.

Dead, living, free, or in prison on the orders of the colonialists, it is not I who counts. It is the Congo, it is our people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage.

African unity and solidarity are no longer dreams. They must be expressed in decisions.

The day will come when history will speak. But it will not be the history which will be taught in Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations. It will be the history which will be taught in the countries freed from colonialism and its puppets.

Without dignity there is no liberty, without justice there is no dignity, and without independence there are no free men.

We are going to make the Congo the center of the sun’s radiance for all of Africa.

We are not afraid of freedom. We are not afraid of independence. We are afraid of those who want to use this freedom and independence for their own selfish ends.

Blacks, like whites, are intelligent and courageous. They want to control their own affairs and develop their own country.

Our country, which was plundered for 80 years, is now free. No one will be able to stop us from building our independence.

We must not confuse the Congo's independence with the independence of certain individuals.