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What is modesty but inverted pride?

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
Modesty
Pride
Inverted

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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.
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There must be areas in which a particular character does not represent you.
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Do not be in a hurry to rush into the pleasures of the world like the young antelope who danced herself lame when the main dance was yet to come.
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If you have leaders who are prepared to incite group against group it is very easy to manufacture reasons and excuses.
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Presidents do not go off on leave without telling the country.
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If the clan did not exact punishment for an offense against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled all the others.
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I think dialects should be left alone. People should write in whatever dialect they feel they want to write. In the fullness of time, these dialects will sort themselves out.
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One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems - where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require?
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Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.
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The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.
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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.
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...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
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In such a regime, I say, you died a good death if your life had inspired someone to come forward and shoot your murderer in the chest-without asking to be paid.
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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.
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I'm very primitive I write with a pen.
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Literature, whether handed down by word or mouth or in print, gives us a second handle on reality.
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A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.
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When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground.
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A good leader for instance is somebody like Nelson Mandela. I do not have seen such people coming every generation, maybe every ten generations, every hundred generations. People who are miracle workers.
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A man who lived on the banks of the Niger should not wash his hands with spittle.
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