We all have our individual artistic temperaments as well as partisanships in creative directions. And we have strong opinions on the merits of the products of our occupation.
WOLE SOYINKAHistory teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.
More Wole Soyinka Quotes
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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.
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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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But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That’s all.
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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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I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.
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And gradually they’re beginning to recognize the fact that there’s nothing more secure than a democratic, accountable, and participatory form of government. But it’s sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical terms.
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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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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.
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Very conscious of the fact that an effort was being made to destroy my mind, because I was deprived of books, deprived of any means of writing, deprived of human companionship. You never know how much you need it until you’re deprived of it.
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I rarely use mythology for its own sake because, as a theatre person, the mythological figures are in fact humanity to the ninth degree and Yoruba mythology in particular has fascination of being one of the most humanised mythologies in the world.
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I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.
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Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.
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I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you’re actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
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Don’t take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
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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