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 SOYINKADon’t take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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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?
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I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
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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.
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Mythology can be used, and has been used, even to re-state, you know, the very urgent problems of the world.
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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.
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Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
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Intolerance has become, I think, the reigning ideology of the world today, the intolerance versus intolerance and it’s taken on lethal proportions.
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My definition of slavery is the deprivation of human volition, any form of relationship between two peoples which is based on the deprivation of volition of one side.
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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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I’m not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I’ve never understood.
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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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The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
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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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I began writing early – very, very early… I was already writing short stories for the radio and selling poems to poetry and art festivals; I was involved in school plays; I wrote essays, so there was no definite moment when I said, ‘Now I’m a writer.’ I’ve always been a writer.
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We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
WOLE SOYINKA