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When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.

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

Art Conversation Eat Word
People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Creation Inspirational People Story Success
Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Greatness Imagination Man Privilege Yourself
Every generation must find its mission and fulfill it, as Fanon said – or betray it. So it is not something that you can write up on the wall, saying this is what has to be done. Every generation has to discover what it needs to do.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Discover Finding Fulfill Generation Mission Need
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
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 ACHEBE

Earth Existence Ideal Myself Place
A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Children Milk Mom Pay
No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Man Prosperity Rule Woman
We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Break Hurt Man Neck Seek
Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Government Leadership Politics
The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don’t always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!
CHINUA ACHEBE

End Government Known Leadership Oneself Problem Worst
When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Brother Death Fight Profit Stranger
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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Better Brave Coward Live Praise Worth
A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Carry Cure Disease Hospital
I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Adventure Kindness Myself Way

When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.

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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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