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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

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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
Strong
Sense
Keen
Reality
Govern
Way
Division
People
Perception
Grew
Lives

More quotes by Wole Soyinka

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Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
Wole Soyinka
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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.
Wole Soyinka
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Writers who open up horizons for other people are performing a function every bit as important as a consciously politicized writer.
Wole Soyinka
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I can look violence in the face and either reject or accept it.
Wole Soyinka
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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
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A human feast is an indifferent morsel to a god.
Wole Soyinka
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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.
Wole Soyinka
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I believe that prizes are useful things for the disciplines, whether we are talking about chemistry or we're talking... It motivates, it, you know, inspires, it encourages and it brings, in the case of literature, it brings literature, the arts out of the ghetto.
Wole Soyinka
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Next to the commodities of corruption, and religion, however, Nigeria is the world capital of rumour mongering.
Wole Soyinka
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There is not a special imposition on writers to be activists. All that does is encourage writers to write propaganda.
Wole Soyinka
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One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
Wole Soyinka
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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
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I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
Wole Soyinka
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There's a lot of insincerity about the actions of our legislators they create distractions - like this anti-gay law you alluded to - and try to mobilise, to exacerbate people's emotions. Until the legislators started making laws, people minded, generally, their own business.
Wole Soyinka
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A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces.
Wole Soyinka
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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.
Wole Soyinka
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I think I'm a very lazy writer and by that I mean that I do not battle, I don't struggle too hard against it. If I have difficulties in the writing, I just go and do other things. I don't feel a compulsion to write.
Wole Soyinka
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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
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Let's say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don't think we have a new Nigeria yet.
Wole Soyinka
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I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
Wole Soyinka