Top 3 Quotes & Sayings by Amadou Hampate Ba

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a writer Amadou Hampate Ba.
Last updated on October 16, 2024.
Amadou Hampate Ba

Amadou Hampâté Bâ was a Malian writer, historian and ethnologist. He was an influential figure in twentieth-century African literature and cultural heritage. He was a champion of Africa's oral tradition and traditional knowledge and is remembered for the saying: "whenever an old man dies, it is as though a library were burning down."

Writer | 1901 - May 15, 1991
In Africa, when an old man dies, it's a library burning. — © Amadou Hampate Ba
In Africa, when an old man dies, it's a library burning.
Every old man that dies is a library that burns.
Writing is one thing and knowledge is another. Writing is the photographing of knowledge, but it is not knowledge itself. Knowledge is a light which is within man. It is the heritage of all the ancestors knew and have transmitted to us as seed, just as the mature baobab is contained in its seed.
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