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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.'

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
Bigs
Continents
States
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Even
African
Disappointment
Fellow
Nigeria
Fellows
Intellectuals
Shame
Continent
State
Conferences

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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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And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
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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.
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See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome.
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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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Obasanjo has openly endorsed violence as a means of governance, embraced and empowered individuals whose avowed declarations, confessions and acts are cynically contrary to the mandate that alone upholds the legitimacy and dignity of his office.
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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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If you are corrupt and you have extra cash you are able to shut the mouth of your accuser and they will be silenced.
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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.
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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.
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Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
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We do not ask the mountain's aid to crack a walnut.
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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.
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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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History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.
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I am a glutton for tranquility.
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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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When you start a political party, you are creating space for yourself. So many people were shocked when they realized that I was serious and had no interest in occupying any political position, so they started to fall out one by one.
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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.
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We live in the real world - we live within a certain history of the plague that has landed on us.
Wole Soyinka