Top 30 Kwame Nkrumah Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

Featured in: Identity Quotes

2. “Action without thought is empty. Thought without action is blind.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

3. “It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and that this can only be found in African unity. Divided we are weak; united, Africa could become one of the greatest forces for good in the world.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

4. “We face neither East nor West: we face forward.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

5. “Those who would judge us merely by the heights we have achieved would do well to remember the depths from which we started.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

6. “Africa is one continent, one people and one nation.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

7. “Africa is a paradox which illustrates and highlights neo-colonialism. Her earth is rich, yet the products that come from above and below the soil continue to enrich, not Africans predominantly, but groups and individuals who operate to Africa’s impoverishment.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

8. “The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked-up with the total liberation of the African Continent.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

9. “We have awakened. We will not sleep anymore. Today, from now on, there is a new African in the world!”

— Kwame Nkrumah

10. “We all want a United Africa, United not only in our concept of what unity connotes, but united in our common desire to move forward together in dealing with all the problems that can best be solved only on a continental basis.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

11. “It is far better to be free to govern or misgovern yourself than to be governed by anybody else.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

12. “The result of neo-colonialism is that foreign capital is used for the exploitation rather than for the development of the less developed parts of the world. Investment under neo-colonialism increases rather than decreases the gap between the rich and poor countries of the world.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

13. “Long before many of us were even conscious of our own degradation, Marcus Garvey fought for African national and racial equality.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

14. “The forces that unite us are intrinsic and greater than the superimposed influences that keep us apart.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

15. “Revolutions are brought about by men, by men who think as men of action and act as men of thought.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

16. “As far as i am concerned, i am in the knowledge that death can never extinguish the torch which i have lit in Ghana and Africa. Long after i am dead and gone, the light will continue to burn and be borne aloft, giving light and guidance to all people.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

17. “It is only the ending of capitalism, colonialism, imperialism and neocolonialism and the attainment of world communism that can provide the conditions under which the RACE question can finally be abolished and eliminated.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

18. “Of all literature I studied, the book that did more than any other to fire my enthusiasm was Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

19. “The best way of learning to be an independent sovereign state is to be an independent sovereign state.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

20. “All people of African descent, whether they live in North or South America, the Caribbean, or in any part of the world are Africans and belong to the African nation.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

21. “Freedom is not something that one people can bestow on another as a gift. Thy claim it as their own and none can keep it from them.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

22. “The masses of the people of Africa are crying for unity.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

23. “The traditional face of Africa includes an attitude towards man which can only be described as being socialist.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

24. “Capitalism is a development by refinement from feudalism, just as feudalism is development by refinement from slavery. Capitalism is but the gentlemen’s method of slavery.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

25. “The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

26. “It is far easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the needle’s eye, hump and all, than for an erstwhile colonial administration to give sound and honest counsel of a political nature to its liberated territory.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

27. “A State in the grip of neo-colonialism is not master of its own destiny. It is this factor which makes neo-colonialism such a serious threat to world peace.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

28. “For this end Africa needs a new type of citizen, a dedicated, modest, honest and informed man. A man submerges self in service to the nation and mankind. A man who abhors greed and detests vanity. A new type of man whose humility is his strength and whose integrity is his greatness.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

29. “We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquility.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

30. “If by their fruits we shall know them, they must first grow the fruits.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

31. “Never before in history has such a sweeping fervor for freedom expressed itself in great mass movements which are driving down the bastions of empire. This wind of change blowing through Africa, as I have said before, is no ordinary wind. It is a raging hurricane against which the old order cannot stand.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

32. “If we are to achieve revolutionary Socialism, then we must avoid any suggestion that will imply that there is any separation between the Socialist world and a ‘Third World’.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

33. “The traditional face of Africa includes an attitude towards man which can only be described, in its social manifestation, as being socialist. This arises from the fact that man is regarded in Africa as primarily a spiritual being, a being endowed originally with a certain inward dignity, integrity, and value. It stands refreshingly opposed to the Christian idea of the original sin and degradation of man.”

— Kwame Nkrumah

34. “Socialism in Africa today tends to lose its objective content in favor of a distracting terminology and in favor of a general confusion. Discussion centers more on the various conceivable types of socialism than upon the need for socialist development.”

— Kwame Nkrumah