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There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.

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
Hunters
Lions
Historian
Proverb
History
Hunter
Great
Historians
Always
Glorify
Hunt
Hunts

More quotes by Chinua Achebe

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Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum... The story is our escort. Without it we are blind... It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle.
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What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.
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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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As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.
Chinua Achebe
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The Novelist As Teacher”: “I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past – with all its imperfections – was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them.
Chinua Achebe
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The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.
Chinua Achebe
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When there is a big tree small ones climb on its back to reach the sun.
Chinua Achebe
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We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.
Chinua Achebe
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A chief does not hurry.
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 believe in the complexity of the human story, and that there's no way you can tell that story in one way and say, 'this is it.' Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing ... this is the way I think the world's stories should be told: from many different perspectives.
Chinua Achebe
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You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.
Chinua Achebe
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A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
Chinua Achebe
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What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal.
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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When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk
Chinua Achebe
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A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.
Chinua Achebe
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If a child washed his hands, he could eat with kings.
Chinua Achebe
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A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.
Chinua Achebe
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Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
Chinua Achebe