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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

As a rule I don’t like suffering to no purpose. Suffering should be creative, should give birth to something good and lovely.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Creativity Love Purpose Rule Suffering
Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft, not the audience, that should be the greatest motivating factor.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Audience Beginning Factor Praying Writing
A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them?
CHINUA ACHEBE

Blame Dry Lips Man
A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Coward Fight Run Time War
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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Dance Hurry Lame Pleasure
No man however great is greater than his people.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Greatness Leadership Man People Position Value
The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Experience Learning Philosophy Wisdom
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
Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Government Leadership Politics
Just think of the work you’ve set yourself to do, and do it as well as you can.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Thinking Work Yourself
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
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
A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Democracy Education Function Government Leadership Participate
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
When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Brother Death Fight Profit Stranger
Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Design Embrace Generation History Performance Recognition Task
If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own. If you don’t like what somebody says, say what it is you don’t like.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Expression Feeling Story Talk
Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Hands Literature Ourselves Reality
A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Carry Cure Disease Hospital
Each of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Book Creation Different Myself People
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
Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Dance Finding Music Self Love Yourself
If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Easy Leadership Manufacture Preparation Reason Yourself
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
The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Motivational Shine Stand Sun
A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Children Milk Mom Pay
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

Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.

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Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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