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 SOYINKAThe hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.
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What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that’s my function, but from time to time it’s possible for me actually to help a writer. I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.
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Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it’s in there.
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When I say war, I’m not talking about mental war; I’m talking about totally eliminating the obstacles to transformation of our children.
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I know there are writers who get up every morning and sit by their typewriter or word processor or pad of paper and wait to write. I don’t function that way. I go through a long period of gestation before I’m even ready to write.
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I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.
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I have one abiding religion-human liberty.
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Sadness is twilight’s kiss on earth.
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Everybody knows that fraternities are a normal culture in all colleges. It exists in all colleges. President Clinton was a member of a fraternity. In fact, anybody who goes to College in the United States is a member of a College fraternity. There is absolutely nothing evil or occultic about fraternity.
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Let’s say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don’t think we have a new Nigeria yet.
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Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
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Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
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History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.
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I rarely use mythology for its own sake because, as a theatre person, the mythological figures are in fact humanity to the ninth degree and Yoruba mythology in particular has fascination of being one of the most humanised mythologies in the world.
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But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That’s all.
WOLE SOYINKA