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People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Better Brave Coward Live Praise Worth
There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Moral Obligation Power Thinking
As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Oneself Peace People Understand
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
In dealing with a man who thinks you are a fool, it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Deal Fools Goodness Known Man Peace Thinking Yourself
The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Deep Lizard Philosophy Praise
A goat does not eat into a hen’s stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Friendship Goat Hen Stomach
The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Beginning Himself Man Pay Visit
And theories are no more than fictions which help us to make sense of experience and which are subject to disconfirmation when their explanations are no longer adequate.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Experience Fiction Subject Theory
Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Hands Literature Ourselves Reality
It has always been quite apparent to me that no important story can fail to tell us something of value to us.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Apparent Important Ourselves Quite Value
Just think of the work you’ve set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Thinking Work Yourself
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
Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Change Ideas Leadership Limitation Power Problem Stay
In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn’t perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Fake Myself Religion Story Truth
Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray-a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical & moral deformities.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Moral Photograph Physical
When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Door Hard Time Himself Knock Suffering Worry
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
We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Humanity Ourselves Value
I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Growth Life Old People Thinking
What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens – whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Citizenship Country Ethnicity Gender
Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Apology Man Perspective Procrastination
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
A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness
CHINUA ACHEBE

Character Ethnicity Greatness Man Pay Respect
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
No man however great is greater than his people.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Greatness Leadership Man People Position Value
Charity is the opium of the privileged.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Charity Opium Privilege

People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

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People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.

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Popular Authors

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