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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
Translator
Writer
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole Soyinka
Greatest
Freedom
Inspirational
Absence
Threat
Criticism

More quotes by Wole Soyinka

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I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
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I tend to work best as a one-man Task Force, including even the roles of messenger, coffee maker and office cleaner.
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I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.
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Next to the commodities of corruption, and religion, however, Nigeria is the world capital of rumour mongering.
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What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that's my function, but from time to time it's possible for me actually to help a writer. I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.
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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.
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Don't feel that you have to tailor your literature a particular way to please any school of ideology. There will emerge in its own right, effortlessly, some kind of ideological direction which is a reflection of your thinking and you want your thinking, above all.
Wole Soyinka
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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.
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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.
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The media owes the responsibility to constantly tell the public the truth.
Wole Soyinka
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When I say war, I'm not talking about mental war I'm talking about totally eliminating the obstacles to transformation of our children.
Wole Soyinka
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We wasted a lot of creative energy in that immediate post colonial era, when there was a struggle between, you know, the Cold War between the capitalism and communism. Many writers just wasted their energy and their talent because they want to be ideologically correct and of course all they produced was propaganda.
Wole Soyinka
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For me, a writer is already being the deuce of his mission, his occupation to society.
Wole Soyinka
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My definition of slavery is the deprivation of human volition, any form of relationship between two peoples which is based on the deprivation of volition of one side.
Wole Soyinka
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And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
Wole Soyinka
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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
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I happen to be unfortunately temperamental. No, my temperament is also, what you describe to rainfalls, the will of society, to combat a number of contradictions. That happens to be my creative temperament.
Wole Soyinka
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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
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Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
Wole Soyinka
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As a global citizen, I sometimes feel like denying my identity.
Wole Soyinka