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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.

Wole Soyinka

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Wole Soyinka
Age: 90
Born: 1934
Born: July 13
Author
Essayist
Novelist
Philosopher
Playwright
Poet
Professor
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Writer
Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole Wole Soyinka
Problems
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Used
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States
Even
World
Urgent
Mythology

More quotes by 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.
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Religion has really spawned some monsters. It always has, historically. Go all the way back to the Inquisition, you know, the Crusades, the Jehad and so on.
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But when you're deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it's amazing.
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I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
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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.
Wole Soyinka
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To achieve any change in the minds of the youth, there must be reorientation in terms of materialistic tendencies, corruption and crime generally.
Wole Soyinka
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How do I feel when I am invited to a congregation of scientists? I feel quite at home. When they break into their cultic scientific argot, I know when I'm not wanted and step out for a drink.
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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.
Wole Soyinka
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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
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Even when I'm writing plays I enjoy having company and mentally I think of that company as the company I'm writing for.
Wole Soyinka
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The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
Wole Soyinka
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Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
Wole Soyinka
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We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
Wole Soyinka
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Romance is the sweetening of the soul With fragrance offered by the stricken heart.
Wole Soyinka
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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.
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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The problem with literature, with writing, is that it works sometimes in terms of correction of social ills. Other times, it just does not suffice. The proof of that is the ability of a dictator to snuff out the life of a writer.
Wole Soyinka
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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.
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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Writers who open up horizons for other people are performing a function every bit as important as a consciously politicized writer.
Wole Soyinka