Frantz Fanon Quotes on Knowledge
Frantz Fanon was a Martinican-born psychiatrist, philosopher, and revolutionary whose work has been foundational for postcolonial theory. This page collects quotes attributed to Frantz Fanon on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Frantz Fanon:
“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted.”
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“To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.”
pp. 38 -
Attributed to Frantz Fanon:
“What matters now is not to know the world but to change it.”
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“Letter to Roger Tayeb, December 1961, as cited in Peter Geismar, Fanon (1971), p. 185.”
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 . -
“Every veil that fell, every body that became liberated from traditional embrace of the haik , every face that offered itself to the bold and impatient glance of the occupier, was a negative expression of the fact that Algeria was beginning to deny herself and was accepting the rape of the colonizer.”
A Dying Colonialism -
“Introduction, page 7”
Why write this book? No one has asked me for it. Especially those to whom it is directed. Well? Well, I reply quite calmly that there are too many idiots in this world. And having said it, I have the burden of proving it. -
“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.”
Introduction, page 8 -
“Introduction, page 8”
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. -
“Introduction, page 8”
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. -
“Fervor is the weapon of choice of the impotent.”
Introduction, page 9