“History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.”

What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that’s my function, but from time to time it’s possible for me actually to help a writer. I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.

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.

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.

The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.

Mythology can be used, and has been used, even to re-state, you know, the very urgent problems of the world.

A human feast is an indifferent morsel to a god.

When I say war, I’m not talking about mental war; I’m talking about totally eliminating the obstacles to transformation of our children.

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.

I don’t know any other way to live but to wake up everyday armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.

I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.

Romance is the sweetening of the soul With fragrance offered by the stricken heart.

We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.

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.

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.

Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it’s in there.

I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.

If education is protection to life, you will realize that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course.

We must never expect discretion in first love: it is accompanied by such excessive joy that unless the joy is allowed to overflow, it will choke you.

Wealth remains behind on earth while ibadaah accompanies you into the grave.

All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action.

There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.

There, where neither your children nor your spouse shall accompany you, the Name of the Lord shall emancipate you.

A mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.

The renaissance of Christian philosophy has been accompanied by a resurgence of interest in natural theology, that branch of theology that seeks to prove God’s existence apart from divine revelation.