When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see.
CHINUA ACHEBEWhen old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see.
CHINUA ACHEBEThere is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.
CHINUA ACHEBEProcrastination is a lazy man’s apology.
CHINUA ACHEBEHe is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger.
CHINUA ACHEBEWhen brothers fight to death a stranger inherit their father’s estate.
CHINUA ACHEBEI 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 ACHEBEPeople 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 ACHEBEAnd 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 ACHEBELiterature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
CHINUA ACHEBEWhen suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.
CHINUA ACHEBEIf you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all.
CHINUA ACHEBEThe lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did.
CHINUA ACHEBEWe cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: ‘He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.’
CHINUA ACHEBEDo 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 ACHEBEEvery lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache
CHINUA ACHEBEAn artist in my view is always afraid of extremists; he is always afraid of those who claim to have found the ultimate solution to any question.
CHINUA ACHEBE