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When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

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
An 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

Afraid Artist Question Solution Ultimate View
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
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
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

Earth Existence Ideal Myself Place
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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Experience Fiction Subject Theory
A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Coward Fight Run Time War
A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Children Milk Mom Pay
I think back to the old people I knew when I was growing up, and they always seemed larger than life.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Growth Life Old People Thinking
Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Government Leadership Politics
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

Creation History Meaning Storyteller Survival
A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness
CHINUA ACHEBE

Character Ethnicity Greatness Man Pay Respect
Women and music should not be dated.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Date Music Woman
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.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Direction Neighbor People Story
Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache
CHINUA ACHEBE

Animal Lying Philosophy
A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.
CHINUA ACHEBE

Democracy Education Function Government Leadership Participate

When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

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When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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