Quote

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

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
Political
Structure
Mentality
Egalitarian
Ends
Elements
Progressive
Feudal
Struggle
Systems
Disadvantaged
Even
Pretty
Radical
Nigeria
Would
Society
Shape
Inclined
People
Rather
British
Governance
Opportunity
Towards
Institute
Found
Shapes
Structures

More quotes by Wole Soyinka

Image
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.
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
Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
Wole Soyinka
Image
I know there are writers who get up every morning and sit by their typewriter or word processor or pad of paper and wait to write. I don't function that way. I go through a long period of gestation before I'm even ready to write.
Wole Soyinka
Image
A human feast is an indifferent morsel to a god.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Well, first of all I'll say that I come alive best in theater.
Wole Soyinka
Image
. . . as far as the regime is concerned, well, the play is sheer terror for them. Because they feel, How dare - how dare anybody lift his or her voice in criticism against us? We have the guns. Their level of paranoia and power-drunkenness is unbelievable.
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
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.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Suddenly the world has run amok and left you alone and sane behind
Wole Soyinka
Image
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.
Wole Soyinka
Image
If man cannot, what god dare claim perfection?
Wole Soyinka
Image
Very conscious of the fact that an effort was being made to destroy my mind, because I was deprived of books, deprived of any means of writing, deprived of human companionship. You never know how much you need it until you're deprived of it.
Wole Soyinka
Image
Only 4 sets of people can vote for the PDP: (1) those who are intellectually blind (2) those who are blinded by ethnicity (3) those who are blinded by corruption and therefore afraid of the unknown, should power change hands and finally (4) those who are suffering from a combination of the above terminal sicknesses.
Wole Soyinka
Image
African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.
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
The media owes the responsibility to constantly tell the public the truth.
Wole Soyinka
Image
I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you're actually sitting down putting words to the paper.
Wole Soyinka
Image
If you are corrupt and you have extra cash you are able to shut the mouth of your accuser and they will be silenced.
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