Quotes by Zimbabwean Authors - Page 26

Trust is hard to gain, but it is even harder to regain once lost.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
If you can't find a good enough reason to do something, then why do it?
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Just being yourself is the easiest thing you can do. It doesn't take much effort.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Accept changes in others, as much as you would want them to accept changes in you.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
True happiness involves the freedom to be yourself.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Who can claim to know you more than you know yourself? You have been with yourself all your life, after all.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Some people like to spend their time watching and studying how other people spend their own time.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
By taking control of the present, you are choosing to alter the past you are making for yourself, and your future too.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
People usually gossip about people they don't quite understand, are jealous of, or have other negative feelings for.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Accept loyalty gratefully, and accept betrayal with a smile, knowing that it teaches you life lessons.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Of course, competition against others is there, but it should serve to challenge you. To show you how well other people are competing against themselves.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
A responsible person accepts the results of his choices, attributing blame or praise to himself; that is what makes you happy with the way you turned out.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
What is their real problem? Is it the fear or is it what they do after feeling it?
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
If you have attributes that you could use less productively last year than you can this year (meaning you are more productive), then you have made progress. The opposite equates to regression.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Is it not a sign of immaturity to wish for someone's downfall? To wish that he or she fails at whatever productive endeavours they are aiming at? Wishing to be the only one succeeding, while everyone else fails?It's a world where we are all dependent on one another, one way or the other; and trade is happening at a much more sophisticated level than ever before. It is to our collective benefit for people to succeed.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
What constitutes worth? In short, I would say the valuable attributes you have in relation to how you can productively use them... All attributes have value, but they have worth if they are used productively.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
There is an equation that I like to use when looking at my life's progress:Current Worth - Past Worth = Progress or Regression
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Laziness is when you accede to the misconception that work is unnecessary.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
My worth changes with every choice I make and every action I take. I can choose myself to uselessness or to being valuable.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
I do not wish for anyone's downfall. The world needs successful people. I just think of ways to add more value to myself, and wish that my adversaries would do the same.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Nobody alive today can tell me how much I am worth. I change that everyday.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
I believe that if you can't agree with how they think, then it's better to learn from their difference.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
Check yourself often and correct your faults. Quit blaming others. Take responsibility for your own life. That's the only way you can grow!
Mufti Ismail Menk
Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses and start making changes.
Roy Bennett
Running away, avoiding life's battles or giving up robs you of the opportunity to grow and be stronger.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
It is us who change. We grow stronger, and the problems appear less imposing.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
I'm strong beyond appearances reveal,But I'm human, and have weak moments still.
Innocent Mwatsikesimbe
I have a feeling that we've seen the dismantling of civilisation, brick by brick, and now we're looking into the void. We thought that we were liberating people from oppressive cultural circumstances, but we were, in fact, taking something away from them. We were killing off civility and concern. We were undermining all those little ties of loyalty and consideration and affection that are necessary for human flourishing. We thought that tradition was bad, that it created hidebound societies, that it held people down. But, in fact, what tradition was doing all along was affirming community and the sense that we are members of one another. Do we really love and respect one another more in the absence of tradition and manners and all the rest? Or have we merely converted one another into moral strangers - making our countries nothing more than hotels for the convenience of guests who are required only to avoid stepping on the toes of other guests?
Alexander McCall Smith
Women often get dropped from memory, and then history.
Doris Lessing
We stood, separated by space, certainly, in identical conditions of pleasant uncertainty and anticipation, and we both held our heart in our hands, all pink and palpitating and ready for pleasure and pain, and we were about to throw these hearts in each other's faces like snowballs, or cricket balls (How's that?) or, more accurately, like great bleeding wounds: "Take my wound". Because the last thing one ever thinks at such moments is that he (or she) will say: Take my wound, please remove the spear from my side. No, not at all; one simply expects to get rid of one's one.
Doris Lessing
Oh, I simply can’t think. When I really want to depress myself, I think of all the brilliant men I know, married to their stupid wives. Enough to break your heart, it really is
Doris Lessing
The grief of widowhood, of losing a husband and only to be harassed by his brothers, remained pressed on her.
Panashe Chigumadzi
The house may have been impressive in stature, but having gasped as they drove up the driveway, she had been disappointed by the interior. It was so bare. Lacking in things. She was mystified by this invisible wealth and the austerity of the house.She didn’t understand Mrs Zvobgo, she was rich but chose to live, in Tsitsi’s opinion, like a pauper. She was clearly uninterested in buying things. Maybe it was because she had never known poverty. Tsitsi on the other hand felt she was well versed in it.Tsitsi, unlike Mrs Zvobgo, wasn’t above noveau riche vulgarities. She didn’t want any sort of English boarding school minimalism. She wanted more. She wanted things. Things . Things. Things. Many of them. That much she was willing to admit. She made a private decision then that she would change this when she became the woman of this household. She knew they said wealth whispered and rich shouted, but what good was having all that they did if she had to keep it like some sort of secret?
Panashe Chigumadzi
I’m not going to be like my mother. You’re maniacs. You’re mad.“Yes,” said Kate. “I know it. And so you won’t be. The best of luck to you. And what are you going to be instead?
Doris Lessing
Younger woman says, “I’m not going to be like my mother. You’re maniacs. You’re mad.”“Yes,” [older woman responds] “I know it. And so you won’t be. The best of luck to you. And what are you going to be instead?
Doris Lessing
I’m not going to be like my mother. You’re maniacs. You’re mad."“Yes,” said Kate. “I know it. And so you won’t be. The best of luck to you. And what are you going to be instead?
Doris Lessing
This business of womanhood is a heavy burden.
Tsitsi Dangarembga
The small Chinese man sank onto the plush leather sofa. He sank so low on the large brown sofa, it looked like it would swallow him whole. He sat, clutching his briefcase close to his chest, his alert eyes scanning the spacious room. Opposite him, across a glass table sat a large African Minister in a freshly pressed Italian suit.
Marko Phiri
Yet Nathan appreciated being alone as he sipped his cold glass of beer. It gave him time to think. In the next thirty minutes or so, the flight he was waiting for would land and his day would begin. It was autumn in the capital, and the clear skies created an illusion of a city that was at peace with itself.
Marko Phiri
As Zhao ducked, he sneaked a blow aimed at Homwe’s stomach. Homwe groaned in surprise and confusion – shocked at his opponent’s speed and strength. He quickly drew a handgun from under his jacket and hit Xi Zhao on the head, drawing blood from his skull.
Marko Phiri
Disciplining a child is easier than disciplining a grown person, and forgiving a child’s insolence is easier than forgiving a grown person's impudence.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The recipe for each child is just for that child, even if it is the same mother and father.
Alexander McCall Smith
Matthew knew that phrenology was nonsense, and yet, years later, he found himself making judgments similar to those made by his father; slippery people looked slippery; they really did. And how we become like our parents! How their scorned advice - based, we felt in our superiority, on prejudiced and muddled folk wisdom - how their opinions are subsequently borne out by our own discoveries and sense of the world, one after one. And as this happens, we realise with increasing horror that proposition which we would never have entertained before: our mothers were right!
Alexander McCall Smith
A wise man is a student though he is a teacher.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The right thing done at the wrong timewill not bring about the right results.
Matshona Dhliwayo
One who has great wisdom has great power.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The greater a man’s folly, the greater his enslavement. The wiser a man is, the greater his freedom.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Wisdom is a sharp chisel to carve out your future.
Matshona Dhliwayo
In a group of intelligent men expect only one to be wise.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The shrewd may gain temporarily, but the wise gain permanently.
Matshona Dhliwayo
You cannot force a dry well to yield water.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The roots of the strongest tree grow deep.
Matshona Dhliwayo
He who illumines one has begun illumining the world.
Matshona Dhliwayo
To be wise for one day is better than to be intelligent for a hundred.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The greater your wisdom, the shorter the distance to success.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Wisdom in poverty is better than folly in affluence.
Matshona Dhliwayo
A wise servant is better than a foolish ruler.
Matshona Dhliwayo
To have an empty head is worse than to have an empty bank account.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The eloquence of the pen is just as sharp as the point of a sword.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Today is tomorrow’s stepping stone, but for the wise it is a ladder.
Matshona Dhliwayo