I said: “A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces”. In other words: a tiger does not stand in the forest and say: “I am a tiger”. When you pass where the tiger has walked before, you see the skeleton of the duiker, you know that some tigritude has been emanated there.
WOLE SOYINKACulture is a matrix of infinite possibilities and choices. From within the same culture matrix we can extract arguments and strategies for the degradation and ennoblement of our species, for its enslavement or liberation, for the suppression of its productive potential or its enhancement.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we’d never smelled the fumes of petroleum.
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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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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.
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The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.
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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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Romance is the sweetening of the soul With fragrance offered by the stricken heart.
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If man cannot, what god dare claim perfection?
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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.
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You accept whoever you are interacting with, directly, or indirectly.
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It’s the place to begin, always — to return to home, literally.
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Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.
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Arts and the Sciences are a natural symbiosis. They stem from the same human existential impulse – exploration. Exploration of what lies beneath the surface, and re-confuguration of elements of what we call reality.
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You 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.
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When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.
WOLE SOYINKA