black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild.

Ben Okri

A people are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves. Sick storytellers can make nations sick. Without stories we would go mad. Life would lose it’s moorings or orientation… Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart larger.
BEN OKRI

Heart Mad People
Don’t despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.
BEN OKRI

Beautiful Despair Secret
Don’t neglect the gold in your own back yard.
BEN OKRI

Gold Neglect Yards
Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.
BEN OKRI

Inspiring Night Water
Success will never confuse you of scatter your spirit, but will make you fly higher into the good sunlight. Your life will always surprise you.
BEN OKRI

Good Higher Success Surprise
When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity’s chief instrument.
BEN OKRI

Chaos Deities Eras
An inner darkness is darker than an outer darkness.
BEN OKRI

Darker Darkness Inner
In the beginning there was a river. The river became a road and the road branched out to the whole world. And because the road was once a river it was always hungry.
BEN OKRI

Hungry Rivers World
I was told stories, we were all told stories as kids in Nigeria. We had to tell stories that would keep one another interested, and you weren’t allowed to tell stories that everybody else knew. You had to dream up new ones.
BEN OKRI

Children Dream Kids
Who knows, maybe this whole planet is an asylum, a penal realm. A place for hard cases.
BEN OKRI

Asylums Cases Planet
Creativity is the art of the impossible
BEN OKRI

Art Creativity Impossible
People are as healthy and confident as the stories they tell themselves.
BEN OKRI

Healthy People Stories
If we could be pure dancers in spirit we would never be afraid to love, and we would love with strength and wisdom.
BEN OKRI

Afraid Dancer Love Spirit
I am not fighting for success, just to get more beauty out of myself and share it with more people.
BEN OKRI

Fighting People Share
To poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself. Beware of the storytellers who are not fully conscious of the importance of their gifts, and who are irresponsible in the application of their art: they
BEN OKRI

Art Poison Stories
We are living in enchanted time. With our spirits right.
BEN OKRI

Enchanted Spirit Time

There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

There ought to be three traditions in the art of humanity: the realistic, the visionary and the wild.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ben Okri Quotes