There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?
WOLE SOYINKAIntolerance has always been with us, you know. The moment you have ideology, we have intolerance, whether it’s the secular ideology or, you know ideocratic ideology, which always brings with it some kind of intolerance.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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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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The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
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I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.
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Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
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History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.
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And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
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Very conscious of the fact that an effort was being made to destroy my mind, because I was deprived of books, deprived of any means of writing, deprived of human companionship. You never know how much you need it until you’re deprived of it.
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The media must be used effectively to reach the masses. You have to find a new language in which to address the people and demonstrate what is possible.
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A human feast is an indifferent morsel to a god.
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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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I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we’d never smelled the fumes of petroleum.
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For me, a writer is already being the deuce of his mission, his occupation to society.
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My father used to tell me stories before I fell asleep. When the children would gather, at a certain point, I had a tendency to make up my own elementary variations on stories I had heard, or to invent totally new ones.
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I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
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Alfred Nobel regretted that his invention, dynamite, was converted to degrading use, hence his creation of the Nobel Prize, as the humanist counter to the destructive power of his genius.
WOLE SOYINKA