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Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.

Chinua Achebe

People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that’s the time to do something about it, not when it’s around your neck.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Finding Neck People Time Water Yourself
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
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
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
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
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
Charity is the opium of the privileged.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Charity Opium Privilege
Women and music should not be dated.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Date Music Woman
There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Character Fear Man Nature Oneself Shout
A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness
CHINUA ACHEBE

Character Ethnicity Greatness Man Pay Respect
One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems – where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require?
CHINUA ACHEBE

Angry Collapse Quit Reason Therapy Trouble
If one finger brings oil it soils the others.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Fingering Oneself
The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Damage Repair Time
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
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
My weapon is literature.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Literature Myself Weapon

Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.

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Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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