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Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

Chinua Achebe

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

Enough Oneself Strength Tradition
Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Carry Himself Man Wisdom
One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Compromise Integrity Refusal Test True
Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit — in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Control Freedom Human Religion Spirit Threat
When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Death Ground Library Man Old
What a man does not know is greater than he.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Greatness Himself Man
When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Feeling Himself Madness Man Naked Shame
The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Damage Repair Time
I don’t like to see mistakes on the typewriter. I like a perfect script. On the typewriter I will sometimes leave a phrase that is not right, not what I want, simply because to change it would be a bit messy.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Change Mistake Myself Perfection Script See Simplicity
If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Inspirational Motivational Writing Yourself
When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Competition Coward Fight Hungry Man See
Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Hands Literature Ourselves Reality
When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Brother Death Fight Profit Stranger
A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Carry Cure Disease Hospital
A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Himself Man Worth
People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Confirm Failure Head People See

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

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Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.

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Popular Authors

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