We do not ask the mountain’s aid to crack a walnut.
WOLE SOYINKAYou cannot live a normal existence if you haven’t taken care of a problem that affects your life and affects the lives of others, values that you hold which in fact define your very existence.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.
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A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces.
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We all have our individual artistic temperaments as well as partisanships in creative directions. And we have strong opinions on the merits of the products of our occupation.
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There’s a lot of insincerity about the actions of our legislators; they create distractions – like this anti-gay law you alluded to – and try to mobilise, to exacerbate people’s emotions. Until the legislators started making laws, people minded, generally, their own business.
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Romance is the sweetening of the soul With fragrance offered by the stricken heart.
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I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.
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See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome.
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Religion has really spawned some monsters. It always has, historically. Go all the way back to the Inquisition, you know, the Crusades, the Jehad and so on.
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Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
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I’m not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I’ve never understood.
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I have one abiding religion-human liberty.
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Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there’s a lot of work to be done.
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Well, some people say I’m pessimistic because I recognize the eternal cycle of evil. All I say is, look at the history of mankind right up to this moment and what do you find?
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Arts and the Sciences are a natural symbiosis. They stem from the same human existential impulse – exploration. Exploration of what lies beneath the surface, and re-confuguration of elements of what we call reality.
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I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you’re actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
WOLE SOYINKA