Idi Amin
From Wikiquote
Idi Amin Dada (May 17, 1925 – August 16, 2003) was a Ugandan military officer and the President of Uganda from 1971 to 1979.
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[edit] Sourced
- I am not a politician but a professional soldier. I am therefore a man of few words.
- Radio broadcast (25 January 1971)
- Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking. I never had any formal education—not even a nursery school certificate. But sometimes I know more than Ph.D.s because as a military man I know how to act. I am a man of action.
- Appears in Barbet Schroeder (1974), General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait
[edit] Attributed
- My mission is to lead the country out of a bad situation of corruption, depression and slavery. After I rid the country of these vices, I will then organize and supervise a general election of a genuinely democratic civilian government.
- Quoted in Uganda, the Human Rights Situation (1978), by United States Congress. Senate, p. 13 - Civil rights - 1978
- His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular.
- About himself. Quoted in "Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience" (1999) by Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates
- You cannot run faster than a bullet.
- Quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 51
- Although some people felt Adolf Hitler was bad, he was a great man and a real conqueror whose name would never be forgotten.
- Quoted in The Evil 100 (2004) by Martin Gilman Wolcott, p. 78
- Politics is like boxing — you try to knock out your opponents.
- Quoted in Brewer's Cabinet of Curiosities (2006) by Ian Crofton, p. 64
- In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.
- Quoted in 101 People You Won't Meet in Heaven (2007) by Michael Powell, p. 11
- I am the hero of Africa.
- Quoted in Simpson's Contemporary Quotations, by James Beasley Simpson, p. 1
[edit] Misattributed
- Mr. Queen, sir, horrible ministers, invented guests, ladies under gentlemen. I thank the Queen very plenty for what he has done to me. I tell you, I have eaten so much that I am now fed up with malicious meal.…
- Sir, Mr. Queen, horrible guests, before I undress you, let me put down my testicles.…
- Before I undress the Queen, let me remove my testicles.
- Various versions of a stump speech supposedly made during a luncheon in Buckingham Palace
[edit] About Idi Amin
- Amin is a splendid man by any standards and is held in great respect and affection by his British colleagues. … He is tough and fearless and in the judgment of everybody … completely reliable. Against this he is not very bright and will probably find difficulty in dealing with the administrative side of command.
- Dominions Office profile (1960s)
- Idi Amin is a splendid type and a good [rugby] player … but virtually bone from the neck up, and needs things explained in words of one letter.
- British government profile, 1960s
- Racist, erratic and unpredictable, brutal, inept, bellicose, irrational, ridiculous, and militaristic.
- U.S. Ambassador Thomas Patrick Melady, about Amin's regime, 1973
- Killer and clown, big-hearted buffoon and strutting martinet.
- Time magazine article
