The impatient idealist says: ‘Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.’ But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.
CHINUA ACHEBEOne reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems – where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require?
More Chinua Achebe Quotes
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Each of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
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We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck.
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When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
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Women and music should not be dated.
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One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems – where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require?
CHINUA ACHEBE -
It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live.
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Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come.
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When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
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If one finger brings oil it soils the others.
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Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray-a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical & moral deformities.
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We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: ‘He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.’
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My son even if you want to fall, at least fall where your bones can be gathered.
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Just think of the work you’ve set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.
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The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use.
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The singer should sing well even if it is merely to himself, rather than dance badly for the whole world.
CHINUA ACHEBE