Top 42 Mali Quotes & Sayings

I spoke to Mali and they understand; I've never lived there and I never said I was going there, my intention was always to play with Spain.

A man in Mali told me that there are seven senses. Everyone has five, some can use their sixth. But not everyone has the seventh. It is the power to heal with music, calm with color, to soothe the sick soul with harmony. He told me that I have this gift, and I know what I have to do with it.

Shaped like Texas, but twice as big, Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. It exports almost nothing - mostly just cotton, gold and livestock - and doesnt have enough money to import much of anything, either.

Shaped like Texas, but twice as big, Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. It exports almost nothing - mostly just cotton, gold and livestock - and doesn't have enough money to import much of anything, either.

Many people love my music. Many do not understand it. In general my music is more easily understood by younger people in Mali, and by people outside Africa.

We do not have a South African as a member of the African Commission. The President of the Commission comes from Mali, the Deputy comes from Rwanda and then we have got all these other members, ordinary commissioners. There is no South African there. And the reason, again, for that is not because we didn't have South Africans who are competent.

The poem 'What Teachers Make' is not without its detractors. This one person wrote to me and said: 'Gee, Mr. Mali. You don't possibly have a teacher-God complex, do you?' And that was the first time I'd ever heard of that expression. So, yeah, I'm sure I have a teacher-God complex.

When I'm asked about the relevance to Black people of what I do, I take that as an affront. It presupposes that Black people have never been involved in exploring the heavens, but this is not so. Ancient African empires - Mali, Songhai, Egypt - had scientists, astronomers. The fact is that space and its resources belong to all of us, not to any one group.

In 2013, I had to do 'The Wright Stuff' on about an hour's sleep. I was asked, 'What do you make of the situation in Mali?' and I said, 'Well, I've not seen the film but I know the dog dies in the end.' They were talking about the civil war, and the whole audience took an inward breath. I thought, 'Should I not have revealed the end of the film?'

Mali exists mostly to itself. Few people go there. Few Malians leave. Most of Mali's 13 million people live, and seem to live quite happily, off the rice, corn and millet they grow and the long-horn cattle and goats they keep.

I almost missed the chance to join Barcelona because I was on holiday in Mali visiting my parents' family for the first time. We spent all summer there and every day Barcelona were calling my mother's phone and getting no reply because she had left it in Barcelona.

When Manuel Valls says there's nothing to understand because "understanding is justifying," he echoes back to Georges W Bush's logic in 2001. When François Hollande says "they are attacking us because of who we are," what does it say about victims in Mali, Baghdad, Ivory Coast or Turkey?

I never experimented with the hoddu like I wanted to do. Like on the song "Allah Addu," the hoddu and the voice is something that belongs to West African culture. When you go to the north of Mali, in the past it was just the singer and one instrument player. We never really did have that on our CDs. On some other songs, like "Laare Yoo," we have a whole section of hoddu, something like four of them playing together.

I've been five times to Mali, and when you're there, it makes you feel differently, like you realise you've a lot in life to be thankful for, and you have to give something back as well.

After I wrapped 'Sons of Anarchy,' I traveled by myself for ten weeks. I started in Jordan and finished in Mali, in Timbuktu.

We have oral traditions in Mali, and songs are passed down and around this way. I think in the US you can play all the time in your own room and never see another musician your whole life. We can't understand that in Mali.

As I've learned in the past few years, Mali is home to some of the most incredible musicians in the world.

About Mali, they came to my house. We spoke and after that, the guy posed for a picture giving me a Mali shirt. With Spain I didn't go because I was injured. When the time comes, you will see which team I decide.

In 2002, I went to play the Afcon in Mali, and I had the huge privilege to swap my shirt with Marc-Vivien Foe. May his soul rest in peace.

For every African state, like Ghana, where democratic institutions seem secure, there is a Mali, a Cote d'Ivoire, and a Zimbabwe, where democracy is in trouble.

I went to Mali for the first time in 2000, and I met Toumani Diabate and Ballake Sissoko - two of the greatest kora players of our time.

When I came home my parents were listening to Pakistani Qawwali music, like Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, they're listening to music from Mali, like Ali Farka Toure, they're listening to Brazilian songwriters, like Gilberto Gil, to opera, to Neil Young even, things you don't hear as a kid in Caracas. I love all the music they turned me onto.

One moment that changed my mentality was the first time I went to Mali when I was six. Soon after that trip, Barcelona signed me, but when I was there I saw children like me, six years old, who didn't have shoes, while I had the opportunity to fulfil my dream. It shocked me. I was six and I didn't understand.

Courage in danger is half the battle. [Lat., Bonus animus in mala re, dimidium est mali.]

I was approached by Oxfam to go to Mali as their ambassador and get involved in their various initiatives out there. But I felt that was missing the point of using me, a musician.

Those organisations, al-Qaeda being the first one, have all settled in areas full of mining and oil resources or in geostrategic zones. They settled in Afghanistan which underground is filled with oil and lithium. North Mali is filled with mining resources (uranium). It is essential to question the impact and role of some international players that create or let those organisations settle there.

Some members, like Britain and France, are ready, willing and able to take action in Libya or Mali. Others are uncomfortable with the use of military force. Let's welcome that diversity, instead of trying to snuff it out.

Antara Mali is a fine performer. Her role in 'Road' is in complete contrast to that in 'Company.'

There are markets extending from Mali, Indonesia, way outside the purview of any one government which operated under civil laws, so contracts weren't, except on trust. So they have this free market ideology the moment they have markets operating outside the purview of the states, as prior to that markets had really mainly existed as a side effect of military operations.

The West would be well advised to change its approach towards failing states. At present, no major power can find the correct ways and means - and the numbers of failing states are increasing. This year we watched the collapse of Mali, a consequence of the Libyan civil war. The south of Libya and Mali, and Niger too, are well on the way to becoming a no-man's land. After 9/11, George W. Bush and Tony Blair made the promise that they would not tolerate failed states because they could become a haven for terrorists. And today? The number increases.

The climbs up the Hand of Fatima, which is 2,000 feet, and Naga Parbat, which is just over 15,000 feet, were spectacular. The Hand of Fatima and the Kaga Tondo, in Mali, is a personal favourite of mine.

I grew up partially with classical music but listened to a lot of rock when I was young - I like acoustic, and folk from Mali and Armenia and Turkey.

It's stupid, just because I was born with a French passport, I have the right to travel all around the world, but if I was born in Mali, or Venezuela or Bolivia I couldn't.

I was approached by Oxfam to go to Mali as their ambassador and get involved in their various initiatives out there. But I felt that was missing the point of using me, a musician

What we have seen with Islamist extremism, whether it is in Mali or Somalia or Afghanistan, is that the disease is not necessarily the individual country. The disease is the Islamist extremism, and that's what we have to fight; that's the narrative that we have to beat.

Mali is a very social society. We share everything. I think sharing our resources in music forces us to collaborate more, play with other people more, share ideas more.

We need self-confidence in our ability to build Africa. I trust in Mali and I trust in music.

I have the mohawk,even though people still call it the mohawk I say "I don't wanna be disrespectful to the Mohican Indians but there is a tribe in Africa called the Mandinka warriors." They're in the west coast of Africa in the country of Mali.I was reading National Geographic Magazine back in 1977, and I saw the warrior standing there with his spear and his beads around his neck and whatnot and the stuff on his ankles. That was what gave me the idea, I said "Wow, let me bring respect to them," so basically what I wear is called a Mandinka cut.

In Mali, you hear music everywhere. What is fantastic in Mali is the music tradition is handed down from father to son orally. It is not written. You learn from your father and add something, because you are living now and telling a story to others. This results in many different interpretations of the same song.

How bitter it is to reap a harvest of evil for good that you have done! [Lat., Ut acerbum est, pro benefactis quom mali messem metas!]

It would have been better if the United Nations had sent a team to Mali right away to mediate between the government and the rebels. But where is the political initiative? The Americans make their usual recommendations. They want to train the army for the fight with the rebels. US special forces are already in Mali.

And there are also languages that divide nouns into much more specific genders. The African language Supyire from Mali has five genders: humans, big things, small things, collectives, and liquids. Bantu languages such as Swahili have up to ten genders, and the Australian language Ngan’gityemerri is said to have fifteen different genders, which include, among others, masculine human, feminine human, canines, non-canine animals, vegetables, drinks, and two different genders for spears (depending on size and material).