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.
WOLE SOYINKABut when you’re deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it’s amazing.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity.
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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.
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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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The man dies in all those that keep silent.
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See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome.
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The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.
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The writer is the visionary of his people… He anticipates, he warns.
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Sadness is twilight’s kiss on earth.
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There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?
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My father used to tell me stories before I fell asleep. When the children would gather, at a certain point, I had a tendency to make up my own elementary variations on stories I had heard, or to invent totally new ones.
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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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Don’t take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
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The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
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I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you’re actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
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Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it’s in there.
WOLE SOYINKA