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 SOYINKAHistory teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
-
-
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.
WOLE SOYINKA -
And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Each time I think Ive created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.
WOLE SOYINKA -
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 -
I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.
WOLE SOYINKA -
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 SOYINKA -
We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
WOLE SOYINKA -
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?
WOLE SOYINKA -
And gradually they’re beginning to recognize the fact that there’s nothing more secure than a democratic, accountable, and participatory form of government. But it’s sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical terms.
WOLE SOYINKA -
There’s a lot of insincerity about the actions of our legislators; they create distractions – like this anti-gay law you alluded to – and try to mobilise, to exacerbate people’s emotions. Until the legislators started making laws, people minded, generally, their own business.
WOLE SOYINKA -
When I say war, I’m not talking about mental war; I’m talking about totally eliminating the obstacles to transformation of our children.
WOLE SOYINKA -
I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
WOLE SOYINKA -
As a global citizen, I sometimes feel like denying my identity.
WOLE SOYINKA -
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 SOYINKA -
Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.
WOLE SOYINKA






