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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

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Wole Soyinka
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: July 13
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Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole Soyinka
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There's something about the theater which makes my fingertips tingle.
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Writers - human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
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I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
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You accept whoever you are interacting with, directly, or indirectly.
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Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
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The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
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When I tried to create a new political party, which I stressed that this is not my party. I believe very much that there has to be a revolution and this is a party for the young.
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My interest in culture generally is a comparative one, and I think that's where the word joy, I think, can be applicable. There's joy in actually seeing the relatedness, the connectedness of different cultures or recognising, for instance, your own culture in another or another culture in your own culture and feeling an air to all of them.
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The Egba kingdom was one of the very last to be ceded to the British protectorate. It remained almost an independent entity within what is now known as Nigeria, simply because of its own traditional structure of governance.
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Alfred Nobel regretted that his invention, dynamite, was converted to degrading use, hence his creation of the Nobel Prize, as the humanist counter to the destructive power of his genius.
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But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.
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African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.
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Mythology can be used, and has been used, even to re-state, you know, the very urgent problems of the world.
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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.
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A human feast is an indifferent morsel to a god.
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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.
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I have one abiding religion-human liberty.
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There is something really horrific for any human being who feels he is being consumed by other people.
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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.
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I began writing early - very, very early... I was already writing short stories for the radio and selling poems to poetry and art festivals I was involved in school plays I wrote essays, so there was no definite moment when I said, 'Now I'm a writer.' I've always been a writer.
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