Sol T. Plaatje

“Lightening fire is quenched by other fire. [102]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“I am going to leave this place while the leaving is good. [139]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“There’s always a return to the ruins, only to the womb there is no return. [191]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“So long as there are two men left on earth there will be war. [169]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“A hasty dog always burns his mouth. [192]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“The viewpoint of the ruler is not always the viewpoint of the ruled. [70]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Never be led by a female lest thou fall over a precipice. [57]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Man, Ra-Thaga, I always told you that you had a brown skin over a white heart, but you wouldn’t believe me. [161]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, As the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. Look not…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“He noticed further that no Boer ever interceded when a Hottentot was flogged; that in punishing Hottentots the Boers used dangerous weapons,…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“The forests shook with the awful thunder of the guns, which stirred a wild agitation among the denizens of the day. Terrified…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“The quarry of two dogs is never too strong. [106]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Kings sometimes beget dross. [103]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“The foolish dam suckles her young while lying down; but the wise dam suckles hers standing up and looking out for approaching…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Let the enemy try conclusions with me and the vultures shall gorge themselves with his flesh and the ants shall fatten on…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Urge him, even as I would urge all men of my acquaintance, to gather more sense and cease warring against their kind. [170]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“The Van Zyls, especially, and the others Boers at Khing, feeling outraged at De Villiers’s treatment of the Kaffir and his wife,…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“In future, anyone spoiling for human blood may go and join the Matebele and there slake his thirst for blood. They are…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“During the few days she travelled with them, she had been charmed by Hannetjie’s disposition, which seemed to her a shining contrast…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“A man was not made to live alone. Had it not been for Mhudi, I don’t think you would have known me…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“That will not do, for your people will not tolerate me. If they get enraged by nothing more than a drink of…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Strange to relate, these simple folk were perfectly happy without money and without silver watches. Abject poverty was practically unknown; they had…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Oh no, Nonnie,’ protested Ra-Thaga emphatically, ‘you White people have a way of writing down conditional promises and treating them as debts.’ [191]”

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Chief Moroka was not as great an orator as most of the Native chiefs but he excelled in philosophy. In that respect…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“The cause of the rumpus, he said, was that Boers at their own homes never allow black people to drink out of…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“One party went to far away Zimbabwe and returned with pack-oxen loaded with ivory, rhinoceros hides, lion skins and hog tusks. They…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“He’s a liar!’ shouted his astonished companion from the bush hard by: ‘Kill him, he’s alone.’ [128 – 129] They were at…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“She wondered if they too were classed into tribes such as the people are on earth. Can it be that the stars…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Where is the God, this Spirit, that made all these things? Does He not stroll round sometimes and examine His handiwork, and…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“Umnandi would willingly have given up her beauty and stately mien and forgotten her skill in cookery, in return for the birth…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“That exactly is how my father and mother met and became man and wife. There were no home ceremonials, such as the…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“The travelers after leaving Tlou’s village, where De Villers and his friends were hiding, took a rest under a shady tree at…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“The Bechuanan know not the story of the Zungu of old. Remember him, my people; he caught a lion’s whelp and thought…

— Sol T. Plaatje

“I shall return to Kunana, walk around the old place and venerate the ground where lived and worked my mother-in-law whom I…

— Sol T. Plaatje