I never hesitated, as a student, in embracing the necessity of violence. In South Africa, I didn’t just accept it; I looked forward to it as a mission.
WOLE SOYINKAI consider the process of gestation just as important as when you’re actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
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Each time I think Ive created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.
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And gradually they’re beginning to recognize the fact that there’s nothing more secure than a democratic, accountable, and participatory form of government. But it’s sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical terms.
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. . . as far as the regime is concerned, well, the play is sheer terror for them. Because they feel, How dare – how dare anybody lift his or her voice in criticism against us? We have the guns. Their level of paranoia and power-drunkenness is unbelievable.
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Well, some people say I’m pessimistic because I recognize the eternal cycle of evil. All I say is, look at the history of mankind right up to this moment and what do you find?
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Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it’s in there.
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I think that feeling that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.
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But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That’s all.
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You accept whoever you are interacting with, directly, or indirectly.
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No man beholds his mother’s womb Yet who denies it’s there? Coiled To the navel of the world is that Endless cord that links us all To the great Origin. If I lose my way. The trailing cord will bring me to the roots.
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I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.
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I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
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The media must be used effectively to reach the masses. You have to find a new language in which to address the people and demonstrate what is possible.
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There’s a lot of insincerity about the actions of our legislators; they create distractions – like this anti-gay law you alluded to – and try to mobilise, to exacerbate people’s emotions. Until the legislators started making laws, people minded, generally, their own business.
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My understanding of the creative process is simply that all cultures and all concerns meet at a certain point, the human point in which everything is related to one another. That has been my creative experience.
WOLE SOYINKA