I am a very curious person; I’ll always ask: is this thing true, is it not true? And I use my own means to investigate and come to my conclusion.
WOLE SOYINKASome of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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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.
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We do not ask the mountain’s aid to crack a walnut.
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But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That’s all.
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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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Culture is a matrix of infinite possibilities and choices. From within the same culture matrix we can extract arguments and strategies for the degradation and ennoblement of our species, for its enslavement or liberation, for the suppression of its productive potential or its enhancement.
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Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
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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.
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. . . 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.
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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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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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As a global citizen, I sometimes feel like denying my identity.
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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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When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.
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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.
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Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
WOLE SOYINKA