Quote

I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.

Wole Soyinka

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Society
Privileged
Cannot
Collective
Power
Minorities
Good
Definition
Definitions
Accept
Articulated
Especially
Minority
Accepting
Collectives

More quotes by Wole Soyinka

Image
I think most writers would like a quiet space, complete isolation, in which they control their own time. Spaces of creativity in which there's very little interruption.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Well, first of all I'll say that I come alive best in theater.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
Wole Soyinka
Image
I have one abiding religion-human liberty.
Wole Soyinka
Image
We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
Wole Soyinka
Image
If I were sure I would pass the physicals, I would be on the next space shuttle to Mars or some other planet. I'll leave the calculations and the navigational tasks to you while I bask in your ingenuity. Find me a place in the capsule and watch me outdo Michael Jackson's moonwalk to the music of the spheres.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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
Image
It is not fair to those who fight corruption that they have to fight the aggressiveness, the impunity of the corrupt.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Pity you can't be present during my periodic fault-finding sessions with my image in the mirror!
Wole Soyinka
Image
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
Image
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
Image
But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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
Image
And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Romance is the sweetening of the soul With fragrance offered by the stricken heart.
Wole Soyinka
Image
One, a mass movement from within, which, as you know, is constantly being put down brutally but which, again, regroups and moves forward as is happening right now as we are speaking.
Wole Soyinka
Image
I tend to work best as a one-man Task Force, including even the roles of messenger, coffee maker and office cleaner.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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
Image
Writers - human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
Wole Soyinka