It is the human potentials that interest me. I travel and everywhere I go I am amazed at the presence of Nigerians. The intelligence, integrity, productivity, initiative.
WOLE SOYINKAI 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.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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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 -
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 -
I don’t really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
WOLE SOYINKA -
But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That’s all.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
WOLE SOYINKA -
For me, a writer is already being the deuce of his mission, his occupation to society.
WOLE SOYINKA -
A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces.
WOLE SOYINKA -
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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I never hesitated, as a student, in embracing the necessity of violence. In South Africa, I didn’t just accept it; I looked forward to it as a mission.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Each time I think Ive created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.
WOLE SOYINKA -
No man beholds his mother’s womb Yet who denies it’s there? Coiled To the navel of the world is that Endless cord that links us all To the great Origin. If I lose my way. The trailing cord will bring me to the roots.
WOLE SOYINKA -
The writer is the visionary of his people… He anticipates, he warns.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Mythology can be used, and has been used, even to re-state, you know, the very urgent problems of the world.
WOLE SOYINKA -
When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.
WOLE SOYINKA -
Don’t take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
WOLE SOYINKA