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I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.

Chinua Achebe

When brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Brother Death Fight Profit Stranger
I don’t like to see mistakes on the typewriter. I like a perfect script. On the typewriter I will sometimes leave a phrase that is not right, not what I want, simply because to change it would be a bit messy.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Change Mistake Myself Perfection Script See Simplicity
When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Beginning Education Land Learning Myself People
The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don’t always know what you get at the other end. If you are not careful you could replace a bad government with one much worse!
CHINUA ACHEBE

End Government Known Leadership Oneself Problem Worst
If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Hear Understand Yourself
When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Arm God Goodness Harvest Man Peace Strength
The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Damage Repair Time
The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Deep Lizard Philosophy Praise
He is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Brother Fools Treat Worst
When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
CHINUA ACHEBE

Man Watch Young
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
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
Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Change Ideas Leadership Limitation Power Problem Stay
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
I am against people reaping where they have not sown. But we have a saying that if you want to eat a toad you should look for a fat and juicy one.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Eat People Talk Yourself
Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Hands Literature Ourselves Reality

I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.

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I prefer to go on trying all kinds of things, not to be told, This is the way it is done.

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