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They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit.

Chinua Achebe

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Chinua Achebe
Age: 82 †
Born: 1930
Born: November 16
Died: 2013
Died: March 22
Essayist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Short Story Writer
University Teacher
Writer
Albert Chinualumogu Achebe
Free
Period
Used
Tend
Best
Election
Long
Periods
Always
Habit
Facility
Lose
Elected
Leader
Particularly
Loses
Leaders

More quotes by Chinua Achebe

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I was a supporter of the desire, in my section of Nigeria, to leave the federation because it was treated very badly with something that was called genocide in those days.
Chinua Achebe
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Diversity is not an abnormality but the very reality of our planet. The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have narrowness of heart and mind is not.
Chinua Achebe
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Beware Okonkwo! she warned. Beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware!
Chinua Achebe
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Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others.
Chinua Achebe
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I have so many ideas there are so many things that need to be done, so many possibilities, you know one is terribly excited, but at the same time, you're almost confused, because you don't know where to begin.
Chinua Achebe
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I think the language that we use in dealing with one another is very important. And even if I am called upon to bring out some money to support a regime, and I am entitled to say I do not like what that regime does and obviously I am not going to put money there - you cannot really say this is wrong or this is unreasonable.
Chinua Achebe
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It is as though the ancestors who made language and knew from what bestiality its use rescued them are saying to us: Beware of interfering with its purpose! For when language is seriously interfered with, when it is disjoined from truth, be it from mere incompetence or worse, from malice, horrors can descend again on mankind.
Chinua Achebe
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Art should be on the side of humanity.
Chinua Achebe
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When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.
Chinua Achebe
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[Would] a sensible man spit out the juicy morsel that good fortune put in his mouth?
Chinua Achebe
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Poetry and slave trading cannot be bedfellows. That's where I stand.
Chinua Achebe
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I'm sure if one turned one's mind back from grandiose faults to what is happening to the average man or woman or child in the rural areas, we will probably find that's where the energy for development is.
Chinua Achebe
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My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don’t see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity. To make humanity uncomfortable, yes. But intrinsically to be against humanity, that I don’t take.
Chinua Achebe
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I couldn't tell you why but now I know a story is in fact where you discover who you are, where a culture discovers what it is and I just think that this is a terribly important place to get into and that I would enjoy it.
Chinua Achebe
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Children are very fair minded, they really are.
Chinua Achebe
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The most awful thing about power is not that it corrupts absolutely but that it makes people so utterly boring, so predictable.
Chinua Achebe
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Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?
Chinua Achebe
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I don't care about age very much.
Chinua Achebe
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Serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict.
Chinua Achebe
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The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.
Chinua Achebe