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Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it’s far removed from your situation.

Chinua Achebe

It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbors.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Direction Neighbor People Story
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
If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Inspirational Motivational Writing Yourself
A goat does not eat into a hen’s stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Friendship Goat Hen Stomach
We shall all live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch and let the egret perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Break Children Live Prayer Wing
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
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
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
You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Change Learning Myself
We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Humanity Ourselves Value
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.’
CHINUA ACHEBE

Himself Humanity Moral Practical Stay Value
A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Himself Man Trouble
Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Apology Man Perspective Procrastination
Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum… The story is our escort. Without it we are blind… It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Beyond Blind Cattle Ourselves Warrior
If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Hear Understand Yourself
Art is man’s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Art Creation Effort Himself Reality
An angry man is always a stupid man.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Angry Man Stupidity
While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Charity Forget Goodness Lying Necessary Reality Solution Work
Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it’s far removed from your situation.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Beginning Identify People Removal Situation Story Yourself
When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Brother Death Fight Profit Stranger
There is that great proverb – that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Deep Glorify Greatness Hunt Proverb Story
Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Government Leadership Politics
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
There is no story that is not true.
CHINUA ACHEBE

One Liner Story True
The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Experience Learning Philosophy Wisdom
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
When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Death Ground Library Man Old

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it’s far removed from your situation.

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Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it’s far removed from your situation.

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Popular Authors

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