Piet Joubert

"...gezien hebben dat de bijbel in de Scholen moet gebruikt worden, zooals de wet voorschrijft."

"...de gevaare drygt aan alle kanten om een oorlog met die kaffers."

"Waarom was de mensche niet doodgeschiet toen hulle bijde eerste laager gekom het?"

"Ze waren begin geweest van den val. Van daar was de roepstem uitgegaan om protectie uit den vreemden. Die Goudvelde waren een bron geweest van ellende voor die Regering. Aan de goudvelden was het te wijten geweest dat het land in oorlog was gewikkeld worden."

"…the real truth. Now, you must have heard that the English – or as they are better known the Englishmen – took away our country, the Transvaal, or, as they say, annexed it. We then talked nicely for four years, and begged for our country. But no; when an Englishman once has your property in his hand, then is he like a monkey that has its hands full of pumpkin-seeds — if you don't beat him to death, he will never let go – and then all our nice talk for four years did not help us at all. Then the English commenced to arrest us because we were dissatisfied, and that caused the shooting and fighting. Then the English first found that it would be better to give us back our country. Now they are gone, and our country is free, …"

"The heart of my soul is bloody with sorrow. … (Nonverbatim: I have done my utmost for peace, despite England pushing the Boers out of their inheritance bit by bit, and taking advantage of us in every conference and native war. My hope till the present war had been for a South African Confederacy under English protection – the Cape, Natal, Free State and Transvaal all having equal rights and local self-government.) … But now we can only leave it to God. If it is His will that the Transvaal perish, we can only do our best."

"I liked Kruger more than I liked Joubert. The latter was Slim Piet and … I saw nothing else. The former [Kruger] has always the idea of a Boer empire, and as far as his lights went was an astute honest peasant. He is as the French peasants were in the Revolution, capable of cruelty but it would only be incidental cruelty, and due to his thinking it either necessary or unavoidable. Joubert on the other hand always strikes me as a cold schemer."