Wole Soyinka famous quotes

Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Being Yourself #Positivity #Just Be Yourself

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

#Children #Father #Stories

Only 4 sets of people can vote for the PDP: (1) those who are intellectually blind; (2) those who are blinded by ethnicity; (3) those who are blinded by corruption and therefore afraid of the unknown, should power change hands; and finally (4) those who are suffering from a combination of the above terminal sicknesses.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Hands #Ethnicity #People

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Inspirational #Criticism #Absence

There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel; there is only one home to the life of a tortoise; there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?
-- Wole Soyinka

#Home #Men #Race

Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done.
-- Wole Soyinka

#People #Feelings #Faces

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.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Firsts #Facts #Evolution

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.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Book #Mean #Writing

Sadness is twilight's kiss on earth.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Twilight #Sadness #Kissing

The writer is the visionary of his people... He anticipates, he warns.
-- Wole Soyinka

#People #Visionaries #Anticipate

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.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Morning #Writing #Typewriters

Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Sometimes #Poet

Well, I think the Yoruba gods are truthful. Truthful in the sense that i consider religion and the construct of deities simply an extension of human qualities taken, if you like, to the nth degree. i mistrust gods who become so separated from humanity that enormous crimes can be committed in their names. i prefer gods who can be brought down to earth and judged, if you like.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Taken #Thinking #Names

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

#Confidence #Thinking #Self

There's a kind of dynamic quality about theater and that dynamic quality expresses itself in relation to, first of all, the environment in which it's being staged; then the audience, the nature of the audience, the quality of the audience.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Quality #Firsts #Kind

Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Lying #Form #Domination

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.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Government #Facts #Form

The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Hands #Dip #Pot

Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Book #Writing #Wish

One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
-- Wole Soyinka

Given the scale of trauma caused by the genocide, Rwanda has indicated that however thin the hope of a community can be, a hero always emerges. Although no one can dare claim that it is now a perfect state, and that no more work is needed, Rwanda has risen from the ashes as a model or truth and reconciliation.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Hero #Perfect #Community

You cannot live a normal existence if you haven't taken care of a problem that affects your life and affects the lives of others, values that you hold which in fact define your very existence.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Taken #Care #Facts

Being the first black Nobel laureate, and the first African, the African world considered me personal property. I lost the remaining shreds of my anonymity, even to walk a few yards in London, Paris or Frankfurt without being stopped.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Paris #Black #Yards

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

#Mother #Men #Roots

Obasanjo has openly endorsed violence as a means of governance, embraced and empowered individuals whose avowed declarations, confessions and acts are cynically contrary to the mandate that alone upholds the legitimacy and dignity of his office.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Mean #Office #Violence

There's something about the theater which makes my fingertips tingle.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Fingertips #Theater

Well, first of all I'll say that I come alive best in theater.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Firsts #Alive #Theater

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.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Skeletons #Forests #Doe

I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Definitions #Minorities #Accepting

You go to conferences, and your fellow African intellectuals - and even heads of state - they all say: 'Nigeria is a big disappointment. It is the shame of the African continent.'
-- Wole Soyinka

#Disappointment #Shame #Bigs

Each time I think Ive created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Thinking #Space #Throwback

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 Soyinka

#Adventure #Pride #Giving

I am a glutton for tranquility.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Tranquility

After the death of the sadistic dictator Gen. Sanni Abacha in 1998, Nigeria underwent a one-year transitional military administration headed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who uncharacteristically bowed out precisely on the promised date for military disengagement. Did the military truly disengage, however? No.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Military #Years #Administration

Even when I'm writing plays I enjoy having company and mentally I think of that company as the company I'm writing for.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Writing #Thinking #Play

For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Justice #Humanity #Prime

We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Humanity #Matter #World

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

#Exercise #Companionship #Kind

The arrogant elimination of the Djaouts of our world must nerve us to pursue our own combative doctrine, namely: that peaceful cohabitation on this planet demands that while the upholders of any creed are free to adopt their own existential absolutes, the right of others to do the same is thereby rendered implicit and sacrosanct. Thus the creed of inquiry, of knowledge and exchange of ideas, must be upheld as an absolute, as ancient and eternal as any other.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Ideas #Our World #Peaceful

Romance is the sweetening of the soul With fragrance offered by the stricken heart.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Heart #Romance #Soul

My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Struggle #Reading #Humanity

The man dies in all those that keep silent.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Men #Silent

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 Soyinka

#People #Evil #Looks

I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Atmosphere #Culture #Grew

The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Aggravation #Novelists #Be Considerate

But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Art #Communication #Social

I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Novelists #Accidents

See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Strong #Men #World

There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Artist #Wish #Different

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.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Choices #Culture #Degradation

Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Reality #Safety #Shadow

I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we'd never smelled the fumes of petroleum.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Country #Oil #Nigeria

I have one abiding religion-human liberty.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Justice #Liberty #Abiding

African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Film #Makers

. . . 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.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Gun #Play #Voice

Let's say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don't think we have a new Nigeria yet.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Thinking #Nigeria

A human feast is an indifferent morsel to a god.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Perspective #Indifferent #Humans

If man cannot, what god dare claim perfection?
-- Wole Soyinka

#Men #Perfection #Claims

Suddenly the world has run amok and left you alone and sane behind
-- Wole Soyinka

#Running #World #Sane

Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer-space.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Space #Aliens #Slave

I know there are writers who get up every morning and sit by their typewriter or word processor or pad of paper and wait to write. I don't function that way. I go through a long period of gestation before I'm even ready to write.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Morning #Writing #Typewriters

History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Justice #Righteous #Teach

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.
-- Wole Soyinka

#People #Everyday #Wake Up

And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Believe #Looks #Crafts

A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces
-- Wole Soyinka

#Doe #Tigers

We do not ask the mountain's aid to crack a walnut.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Mountain #Cracks #Aids

Boko Haram represents the ultimate Fatwa of our time. The question is does the sect's Fatwa represent the articulated position of the majority of Muslims in this nation? My reading over the last few years is an unambiguous no. We are undergoing an affliction that many could not have imagined about a decade ago. Let us confront the ultimate horror now. To remain inactive at this moment is to betray our children and to consolidate the ongoing crimes against our humanity. We must take the battle to the enemy...We sent our children to school; we must bring them back to school.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Children #Reading #School

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Writing #Down And #Lessons

I found, when I left, that there were others who felt the same way. We'd meet, they'd come and seek me out, we'd talk about the future. And I found that their depression and pessimism was every bit as acute as mine.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Depression #Way #Pessimism

One, a mass movement from within, which, as you know, is constantly being put down brutally but which, again, regroups and moves forward as is happening right now as we are speaking.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Moving Forward #Moving #Movement

I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Writing #Important #Gestation

It's the place to begin, always -- to return to home, literally.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Home #Return

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.
-- Wole Soyinka

#Art #School #Writing