The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.
CHINUA ACHEBEWisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.
More Chinua Achebe Quotes
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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 -
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.
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One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
Nobody can teach me who I am.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
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 -
Procrastination is a lazy man’s apology.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
If one finger brings oil it soils the others.
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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 -
Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache
CHINUA ACHEBE -
It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have – otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
CHINUA ACHEBE -
A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.
CHINUA ACHEBE