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West Indies Quotes

Browse 29 quotes about West Indies.

West Indies Quotes

“I took another road, past the old sugar works and the water wheel that had not turned for years. I went to parts of Coulibri that I had not seen, where there was no road, no path, no track. And if the razor grass cut my legs and arms I would think 'It's better than people.' Black ants or red ones, tall nests swarming with white ants, rain that soaked me to the skin - once I saw a snake. All better than people. Better, better, better than people.”

NatureSolitudeWildernessBullyingSanctuaryWildEscapismNaturalistRunawayWest Indies
Book:Wide Sargasso Sea
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“The West Indian is not exactly hostile to change, but he is not much inclined to believe in it. This comes from a piece of wisdom that his climate of eternal summer teaches him. It is that, under all the parade of human effort and noise, today is like yesterday, and tomorrow will be like today; that existence is a wheel of recurring patterns from which no one escapes; that all anybody does in this life is live for a while and then die for good, without finding out much; and that therefore the idea is to take things easy and enjoy the passing time under the sun. The white people charging hopefully around the islands these days in the noon glare, making deals, bulldozing airstrips, hammering up hotels, laying out marinas, opening new banks, night clubs, and gift shops, are to him merely a passing plague. They have come before and gone before.”

LifeExistenceSummerModernityCaribbeanTropicsWest Indies
Book:Don't Stop the Carnival
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“What I see is the millions of people, of whom I am just one, made orphans: no motherland, no fatherland, no gods, no mounds of earth for holy ground, no excess of love which might lead to the things that an excess of love sometimes brings, and worst and most painful of all, no tongue. (For isn't it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime? And what can that really mean? For the language of the criminal can contain only the goodness of the criminal's deed. The language of the criminal can explain and express the deed only from the criminal's point of view. It cannot contain the horror of the deed, the injustice of the deed, the agony, the humiliation inflicted one me.”

ImperialismCaribbeanWest IndiesPostcolonialismNeocolonialismAntigua
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
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“Men don’t grow up. The amount of compromise and emotional labor required to deal with them becomes increasingly difficult with age. So most of your friends who are getting married now will be getting divorced by the time you’re my age because they settled before they knew enough to want more for themselves. Fuckboys are terrible. But....Good guys will be worse. They will expect extra credit for being minimally decent. Asserting standards of reciprocity is the perpetual struggle. Be prepared to compromise A LOT...often with no reward. OR be prepared to learn to be content by yourself A LOT. There is no in between. any woman who tells you different is lying to herself and you.”

BooksJamaicaWest IndiesCrystal EvansTall Dark And Bad
Book:Tall Dark and Bad : Extended Edition
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“Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God's grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America and the West Indies and the millions in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life.”

LooksAmericaFightingBlackLibertyMillionsGraceDiedSlaveWestStormAidsGod's GraceWhirlwindWest Indies
Book:The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, Or, Africa for the Africans
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“Practically all we know is that thousands of native Haitians have been killed by American Marines, and that many of our own gallant men have sacrificed their lives at the behest of an Executive department in order to establish laws drafted by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. ... I will not empower an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to draft a constitution for helpless neighbors in the West Indies and jam it down their throats at the point of bayonets borne by U.S. Marines.”

KnowsMenHas BeensLawOrderConstitutionWestNeighborEmpoweringDepartmentNativeExecutivesThroatSecretaryHelplessNavyMarineJamAssistantsGallantBayonetsWest IndiesUs Marine
Author:Warren G. Harding
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“What signifies Philosophy that does not apply to some Use? May we not learn from hence, that black Clothes are not so fit to wear in a hot Sunny Climate or Season, as white ones; because in such Cloaths the Body is more heated by the Sun when we walk abroad, and are at the same time heated by the Exercise, which double Heat is apt to bring on putrid dangerous Fevers? The Soldiers and Seamen, who must march and labour in the Sun, should in the East or West Indies have an Uniform of white?”

ShouldMayDoePhilosophyUseBodyBlackWhiteWalksSunDangerousFitExerciseClothesSeasonsHotWestClimateSoldierEastHeatLabourMarchRadiationUniformsFeverSunnySeamenWest IndiesBlack Clothes
Book:The Complete Works, in Philosophy, Politics, and Morals, of the Late Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Now First Collected and Arranged: with Memoirs of His Early Life, Written by Himself ; in Three Volumes
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“To abolish a status, which in all ages God has sanctioned, and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of our fellow-subjects; but it would be extreme cruelty to the African Savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre, or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life; especially now when their passage to the West-Indies and their treatment there is humanely regulated.”

MenCountryStatesWould BeAgeClassSubjectsFellowsSlaveryPropertyWestExtremesCrueltyTreatmentPassagesPortionsIntroducingSavagesBondageAbolishMassacresRobberyWest Indies
Book:The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
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“Had the Holocaust happened in Tahiti or the Congo, as it has; had it happened in South America, as it has; had it happened in the West Indies, as it has - you must remember that within fifty years of Columbus's arrival, only the bones remained of the people called the Arawaks, with one or two of them in Spain as specimens. Had the Holocaust committed under the Nazis happened somewhere else, we wouldn't be talking about it the way we talk about it.”

PeopleWayYearsTwoAmericaRememberTalkingHappenedWestSouthCommittedBonesFiftyHolocaustNaziSpainSomewhere ElseCongoArrivalsColumbusSouth AmericaWest IndiesTahiti
Author:Jamaica Kincaid
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“I really cannot understand the point of what you're saying. Really,' said Clotilde, looking at her. 'What a very extraordinary person you are. What sort of a woman are you? Why are you talking like this? Who are you?' Miss Marple pulled down the mass of pink wool that encircled her head, a pink wool scarf of the same kind that she had once worn in the West Indies. 'One of my names,' she said, 'is Nemesis.' 'Nemesis? And what does that mean?' 'I think you know,' said Miss Marple. 'You are a very well educated woman. Nemesis is long delayed sometimes, but it comes in the end.”

ThinkingKnowsWellsKindMeanPersonsLongDoeSaidEndsSometimesNamesTalkingMissingMassWestExtraordinaryEducatedWornDelayedWoolScarvesWell EducatedNemesisWest IndiesEducated WomenExtraordinary PersonMiss Marple
Author:Agatha Christie
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“In fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America. Now, some have argued Columbus actually discovered the West Indies, or that Norsemen had discovered America centuries earlier, or that you really can't get credit for discovering a land already populated by indigenous people with a developed civilization. Those people are communists. Columbus discovered America.”

PeopleTwoAmericaLandCenturyCivilizationOceanHundredBlueWestCreditCommunistDiscoveringNinetyIndigenousFourteenColumbusIndigenous PeopleWest Indies
Author:Jon Stewart
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“HURRICANE, n. An atmospheric demonstration once very common but now generally abandoned for the tornado and cyclone. The hurricane is still in popular use in the West Indies and is preferred by certain old- fashioned sea-captains.”

StillsUseScienceCertainCommonSeaHumourWestCertaintyAtmosphereAbandonedCaptainsOld FashionedDemonstrationHurricanesTornadoesCyclonesWest Indies
Book:The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition
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“I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major's Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism.”

IfsFirstsHas BeensStatesHelpingFeelingsGovernmentFallBreakRocksFiguresMajorsSafetyWestCharitySevenNotionBottomBritishWelfareCitizenshipRoyaltyWelfare StateCameronSafety NetIndebtedHandoutsChequesWest Indies
Author:J. K. Rowling
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“Marcus Garvey was one of the first advocates of Black Power, and is still today the greatest spokesman ever to have been produced by the movement of Black Consciousness...He spoke to all Africans on the earth, whether they lived in Africa, South America, the West Indies or North America, and he made Blacks aware of their strength when united.”

FirstsHas BeensMadeStillsTodayEarthAmericaBlackUnitedConsciousnessMovementWestSouthSpokesNorth AmericaSouth AmericaBlack PowerWest IndiesBlack Consciousness
Author:Walter Rodney
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