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 SOYINKAAs a global citizen, I sometimes feel like denying my identity.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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Each time I think Ive created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.
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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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Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
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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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I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.
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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.
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Don’t take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
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When I say war, I’m not talking about mental war; I’m talking about totally eliminating the obstacles to transformation of our children.
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The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
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Intolerance 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.
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If man cannot, what god dare claim perfection?
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The writer is the visionary of his people… He anticipates, he warns.
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Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
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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.
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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.
WOLE SOYINKA