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When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

Chinua Achebe

Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Design Embrace Generation History Performance Recognition Task
An artist in my view is always afraid of extremists; he is always afraid of those who claim to have found the ultimate solution to any question.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Afraid Artist Question Solution Ultimate View
When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Death Ground Library Man Old
Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Dance Finding Music Self Love Yourself
A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Children Milk Mom Pay
Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Cook Greatness Home Known Mom Neighbor
The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Deep Lizard Philosophy Praise
Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Carry Himself Man Wisdom
A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them?
CHINUA ACHEBE

Blame Dry Lips Man
When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
CHINUA ACHEBE

Man Watch Young
If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Hear Understand Yourself
Charity is the opium of the privileged.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Charity Opium Privilege
A goat does not eat into a hen’s stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Friendship Goat Hen Stomach
Each of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Book Creation Different Myself People
A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Debt Decay
I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Growth Life Old People Thinking

When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

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When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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