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Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer-space.
Wole Soyinka
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Wole Soyinka
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: July 13
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
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Poet
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Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole Soyinka
Remains
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More quotes by Wole Soyinka
Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Wole Soyinka
The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
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
I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.
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
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
The British inclined more towards the feudal mentality, the feudal structures rather than the more radical progressive elements who would re-shape society and institute pretty egalitarian systems of governance with opportunity for even disadvantaged people and so I found that decolonisation was not just the end of political struggle in Nigeria.
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
Sadness is twilight's kiss on earth.
Wole Soyinka
I am a glutton for tranquility.
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
I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.
Wole Soyinka
As I grew older and more mature, I've been able to move beyond the immediate response of violence to a projection of the pragmatic, political consequences of that violence. So it's an effort to attain equilibrium.
Wole Soyinka
I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.
Wole Soyinka
My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.
Wole Soyinka
After the death of the sadistic dictator Gen. Sanni Abacha in 1998, Nigeria underwent a one-year transitional military administration headed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who uncharacteristically bowed out precisely on the promised date for military disengagement. Did the military truly disengage, however? No.
Wole Soyinka
Well, some people say I'm pessimistic because I recognize the eternal cycle of evil. All I say is, look at the history of mankind right up to this moment and what do you find?
Wole Soyinka
There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda.
Wole Soyinka
When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.
Wole Soyinka
Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
Wole Soyinka