Quotes & statements from around Africa by country and contention (the twelve elements of contentment)

Self-awareness & Self-insight

• We are what our thinking makes us: Nigeria.
• Knowledge without wisdom is like water in the sand: Guinea.
• Those who are happy at home should remain at home.

Independency & Steadfastness

• Examine what is said, not him who speaks: Egypt.

Limitlessness & Freedom

• Happiness often sneaks through your door when you left the door open.
• Dance even if the hump on your back does not allow you.

Usefulness & Meaning

• Ubuntu: I am a person through other people. (Zulu)
  • Desmond Tutu said: “One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu, the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can’t exist as a human being in isolation. We believe that a person is a person through other persons.. It is a form of humanism which can be expressed
  • "I am, like because of who we all are." Ubuntu signifies emphatically that: “The life of another person is at least as valuable as one’s own,” and that “Respect for the dignity of every person is integral to this concept.”
  • Source

Experience & Feeling alive

• Those who are absent are always wrong: Congo.

Helpfulness & Attentiveness

• Happiness is not perfected until it is shared.

Engagement & Sense of surroundings

• Happiness is like a perfume, you cannot pour it all on others without allowing a few drops to fall on yourself.
• The chameleon changes color to match the earth; the earth doesn’t change colors to match the chameleon: Senegal.

Goal Orientation & Sense of perspective

Balance & Stability

• If you are building a house and a nail breaks, do you stop building, or do you change the nail?
• Who swims never sinks.

Result awareness & Positivity

Connectivity & Contacts

• Lonely is one: Masai.
• Alone in counsel, alone in sorrow.

Attention & Focus

• Coffee and love taste best when hot: Ethiopia.
• He who learns teaches: Ethiopia.