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The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
Wole Soyinka
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Wole Soyinka
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: July 13
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Professor
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Writer
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole Soyinka
Criticism
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Freedom
Inspirational
Absence
Threat
More quotes by Wole Soyinka
My mind immediately shot to South Africa the moment I sat down to think what I was going to write, what I was going to say. There was no other choice.
Wole Soyinka
And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
Wole Soyinka
I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
Wole Soyinka
When you fight corruption, corruption strikes back and that is the truth because when you fight corruption, you get confidence and when it gets to impunity, then it gets aggressive and says, 'oh, so you think you are different? You think you are tough and different?' This is why some of us are almost permanently in the libel court.
Wole Soyinka
I do not believe that it is necessarily the duty of the writer to give a voice to his community. If a writer is true to his vocation, to his or her vocation, the very process of creativity enlarges these human horizons. It provides insights, even when you're not writing, when your writing's not dealing with a concrete political situation.
Wole Soyinka
In European and American society, many pundits started to lament the death of literature looking at youth who were getting more and more attracted to sitcoms - hard, adventure films and said, our children are no longer reading, or else they're reading cartoons.
Wole Soyinka
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.
Wole Soyinka
The man dies in all those that keep silent.
Wole Soyinka
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
Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
Wole Soyinka
But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.
Wole Soyinka
Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
Wole Soyinka
There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda.
Wole Soyinka
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
The media must be used effectively to reach the masses. You have to find a new language in which to address the people and demonstrate what is possible.
Wole Soyinka
Arts and the Sciences are a natural symbiosis. They stem from the same human existential impulse - exploration. Exploration of what lies beneath the surface, and re-confuguration of elements of what we call reality.
Wole Soyinka
I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
Wole Soyinka
Let's say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don't think we have a new Nigeria yet.
Wole Soyinka
People say human nature is a very vague expression, people tend to say human nature is corruptible anyway and it comes from a theological point of view, goes back to the Garden of Eden, that there is always this corrupt gene waiting to be activated that we inherited from the very beginning. I don't believe in that theological excuse.
Wole Soyinka
Well, first of all I'll say that I come alive best in theater.
Wole Soyinka
