We all have our individual artistic temperaments as well as partisanships in creative directions. And we have strong opinions on the merits of the products of our occupation.
WOLE SOYINKAYou have the entire gamut of human experience captured in the mythology of the Yoruba. This is what makes the Yoruba mythology a natural source material for me in my creative endeavours.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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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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I’m not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I’ve never understood.
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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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Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.
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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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Intolerance has always been with us, you know. The moment you have ideology, we have intolerance, whether it’s the secular ideology or, you know ideocratic ideology, which always brings with it some kind of intolerance.
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If man cannot, what god dare claim perfection?
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Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
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Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it’s in there.
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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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But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That’s why I call it the most social of the various art forms.
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Very conscious of the fact that an effort was being made to destroy my mind, because I was deprived of books, deprived of any means of writing, deprived of human companionship. You never know how much you need it until you’re deprived of it.
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A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces.
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For me, a writer is already being the deuce of his mission, his occupation to society.
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I am a very curious person; I’ll always ask: is this thing true, is it not true? And I use my own means to investigate and come to my conclusion.
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For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity.
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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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It’s the place to begin, always — to return to home, literally.
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Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there’s a lot of work to be done.
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The man dies in all those that keep silent.
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The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
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I have one abiding religion-human liberty.
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Alfred Nobel regretted that his invention, dynamite, was converted to degrading use, hence his creation of the Nobel Prize, as the humanist counter to the destructive power of his genius.
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Sadness is twilight’s kiss on earth.
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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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It is the human potentials that interest me. I travel and everywhere I go I am amazed at the presence of Nigerians. The intelligence, integrity, productivity, initiative.
WOLE SOYINKA