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For me, justice is the prime condition of humanity.

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
Prime
Condition
Conditions
Humanity
Justice

More quotes by Wole Soyinka

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When you are looking for corruption, you should look at the entire stratum of the society, while some forms of corruption are direct, others are indirect.
Wole Soyinka
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You go to conferences, and your fellow African intellectuals - and even heads of state - they all say: 'Nigeria is a big disappointment. It is the shame of the African continent.'
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I think that feeling that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.
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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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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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
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The man dies in all those that keep silent.
Wole Soyinka
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I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we'd never smelled the fumes of petroleum.
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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The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.
Wole Soyinka
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The problem with literature, with writing, is that it works sometimes in terms of correction of social ills. Other times, it just does not suffice. The proof of that is the ability of a dictator to snuff out the life of a writer.
Wole Soyinka
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I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
Wole Soyinka
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Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
Wole Soyinka
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My interest in culture generally is a comparative one, and I think that's where the word joy, I think, can be applicable. There's joy in actually seeing the relatedness, the connectedness of different cultures or recognising, for instance, your own culture in another or another culture in your own culture and feeling an air to all of them.
Wole Soyinka
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I began writing early - very, very early... I was already writing short stories for the radio and selling poems to poetry and art festivals I was involved in school plays I wrote essays, so there was no definite moment when I said, 'Now I'm a writer.' I've always been a writer.
Wole Soyinka
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Intolerance has always been with us, you know. The moment you have ideology, we have intolerance, whether it's the secular ideology or, you know ideocratic ideology, which always brings with it some kind of intolerance.
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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I am a very curious person I'll always ask: is this thing true, is it not true? And I use my own means to investigate and come to my conclusion.
Wole Soyinka
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Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
Wole Soyinka
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I grew up with a very strong sense of what is just and what is not or, to put it this way, I grew up with a keen sense of a division, the reality of a division of perception in people's lives between those who govern and those who govern.
Wole Soyinka