People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them.
CHINUA ACHEBEProcrastination is a lazy man’s apology.
More Chinua Achebe Quotes
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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.
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Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
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Nobody can teach me who I am.
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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.
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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.
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Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too – If one says no to the other, let his wing break.
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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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A debt may get mouldy, but it never decays.
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A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.
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We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck.
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One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.
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Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
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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.
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Whatever music you beat on your drum there is somebody who can dance to it.
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The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.” “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies.
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He is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger.
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My son even if you want to fall, at least fall where your bones can be gathered.
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A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
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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.
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When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.
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The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did.
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If a child washed his hands, he could eat with kings.
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The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.
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Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray-a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical & moral deformities.
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If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.
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Each of my books is different. Deliberately. I wanted to create my society, my people, in their fullness.
CHINUA ACHEBE