Quote

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

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

More quotes by Wole Soyinka

Image
It's the place to begin, always -- to return to home, literally.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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
Image
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
Image
African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Let's say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don't think we have a new Nigeria yet.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Romance is the sweetening of the soul With fragrance offered by the stricken heart.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Being the first black Nobel laureate, and the first African, the African world considered me personal property. I lost the remaining shreds of my anonymity, even to walk a few yards in London, Paris or Frankfurt without being stopped.
Wole Soyinka
Image
There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel there is only one home to the life of a tortoise there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?
Wole Soyinka
Image
Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Writers are human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Colonialism bred an innate arrogance, but when you undertake that sort of imperial adventure, that arrogance gives way to a feeling of accommodativeness. You take pride in your openness.
Wole Soyinka
Image
You have the entire gamut of human experience captured in the mythology of the Yoruba. This is what makes the Yoruba mythology a natural source material for me in my creative endeavours.
Wole Soyinka
Image
There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Sadly however, I discovered in one particular case that a colleague went and paid the bribe on my behalf, just to get our mission fulfilled. That was painful, and it strained our friendship.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Next to the commodities of corruption, and religion, however, Nigeria is the world capital of rumour mongering.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Culture is a matrix of infinite possibilities and choices. From within the same culture matrix we can extract arguments and strategies for the degradation and ennoblement of our species, for its enslavement or liberation, for the suppression of its productive potential or its enhancement.
Wole Soyinka
Image
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
Image
The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.
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