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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

You 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.
WOLE SOYINKA

Care Effect Existence Life Live Normal Other Problem Taken
The writer is the visionary of his people… He anticipates, he warns.
WOLE SOYINKA

Anticipate People Visionary Warm Water
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

Convert Creation Degrading Dynamite Hence Humanist Invention Nobel Prize Regretted
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.
WOLE SOYINKA

Adventure Arrogance Colonialism Feeling Imperial Innate Sort Understand Way
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
But when you’re deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it’s amazing.
WOLE SOYINKA

All Companionship Deprive Devise Human Kind Length Period Survive
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
I said: “A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces”. In other words: a tiger does not stand in the forest and say: “I am a tiger”. When you pass where the tiger has walked before, you see the skeleton of the duiker, you know that some tigritude has been emanated there.
WOLE SOYINKA

Other Prince Proclaim Say Stand Tiger Tignitude Word
Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.
WOLE SOYINKA

Be Just Ultimate Yourself
I think that feeling that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.
WOLE SOYINKA

Absolute Believe Cause Certainty Confidence Feel Must One Self Think Through
. . . as far as the regime is concerned, well, the play is sheer terror for them. Because they feel, How dare – how dare anybody lift his or her voice in criticism against us? We have the guns. Their level of paranoia and power-drunkenness is unbelievable.
WOLE SOYINKA

Concern Far Feel Play Regime Sheer Terror Well
But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That’s all.
WOLE SOYINKA

All Lesson Sit Sown Ultimate Write
The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
WOLE SOYINKA

Absence Criticism Freedom Greatest Threat
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.
WOLE SOYINKA

Existential Exploration Human Impulse Natural Same Science Stem Symbiosis
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?
WOLE SOYINKA

Cycle Eternal Evil People Pessimistic Recognizing Say Some
It’s the place to begin, always — to return to home, literally.
WOLE SOYINKA

Always Begin Home Literally Place Return

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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