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I don’t know any other way to live but to wake up everyday armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.

Wole Soyinka

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
WOLE SOYINKA

Absence Criticism Freedom Greatest Threat
I rarely use mythology for its own sake because, as a theatre person, the mythological figures are in fact humanity to the ninth degree and Yoruba mythology in particular has fascination of being one of the most humanised mythologies in the world.
WOLE SOYINKA

Because Degree Fact Figure Humanity Mythological Mythology Ninth Own Person Rarely Sake Theatre
Everybody knows that fraternities are a normal culture in all colleges. It exists in all colleges. President Clinton was a member of a fraternity. In fact, anybody who goes to College in the United States is a member of a College fraternity. There is absolutely nothing evil or occultic about fraternity.
WOLE SOYINKA

All College Cultural Everybody Fraternities Know Normal Wexist
And gradually they’re beginning to recognize the fact that there’s nothing more secure than a democratic, accountable, and participatory form of government. But it’s sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical terms.
WOLE SOYINKA

Accountable Beginning Democratic Fact Form Gradually More Nothing Participatory Recognize Secure
I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.
WOLE SOYINKA

Accept Can Either Face Reject Took Violence
I don’t really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
WOLE SOYINKA

Accident Came Consider Myself Novelist Purely Really
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.
WOLE SOYINKA

Asleep Certain Children Father Fell Gather Point Story Use
Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.
WOLE SOYINKA

Antagonism Anthisesis Even First Form Hardly Power Resolve Thing Truth Well
What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that’s my function, but from time to time it’s possible for me actually to help a writer. I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.
WOLE SOYINKA

Actually Comparative Criticism Function Literacy Literature Possible Something Strike Talk Teach Time Writer
The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.
WOLE SOYINKA

Challenge Come Give Must Status Together Youth
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.
WOLE SOYINKA

Being Book Conscious Deprive Destroy Effort Fact Made Mean Mind Very Writing
And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
WOLE SOYINKA

Believe Best Kind Learn Look Other Process Work
For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity.
WOLE SOYINKA

Condition For Humanity Justice Prime
Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
WOLE SOYINKA

Control Domination Form Lie Power Selective Therefore Truth
History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.
WOLE SOYINKA

Accompany Beware Christ Excitation History Injustice Justice Liberate Other Righteous Tech
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.
WOLE SOYINKA

Convince Country Develop Highly More Oil People

I don’t know any other way to live but to wake up everyday armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.

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I don’t know any other way to live but to wake up everyday armed with my convictions, not yielding them to the threat of danger and to the power and force of people who might despise me.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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