Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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.
Wole Soyinka
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Genius
Converted
Creation
Degrading
Power
Counter
Nobel
Hence
Alfred
Prize
Regretted
Destructive
Dynamite
Invention
Humanist
More quotes by Wole Soyinka
I found, when I left, that there were others who felt the same way. We'd meet, they'd come and seek me out, we'd talk about the future. And I found that their depression and pessimism was every bit as acute as mine.
Wole Soyinka
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
My father used to tell me stories before I fell asleep. When the children would gather, at a certain point, I had a tendency to make up my own elementary variations on stories I had heard, or to invent totally new ones.
Wole Soyinka
The youth should come together to challenge the status quo. They must not give up.
Wole Soyinka
I cannot accept the definition of collective good as articulated by a privileged minority in society, especially when that minority is in power.
Wole Soyinka
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
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
Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.
Wole Soyinka
Governance can dig itself into a huge hole and not even know it's in there.
Wole Soyinka
Mythology can be used, and has been used, even to re-state, you know, the very urgent problems of the world.
Wole Soyinka
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
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
Intolerance has become, I think, the reigning ideology of the world today, the intolerance versus intolerance and it's taken on lethal proportions.
Wole Soyinka
I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
Wole Soyinka
What I teach is literary criticism and comparative literature and so on and that's my function, but from time to time it's possible for me actually to help a writer. I read something and something strikes me then, I feel I can talk to that writer about it.
Wole Soyinka
I come alive when I have assisted in bringing out the printed word on the stage, you know, and I enjoy directing plays. It's a tactile process, theatre, unlike a number of other forms of the creative work.
Wole Soyinka
I believe that each writer must decide in which language he or she is most comfortable.
Wole Soyinka
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
When a leader encourages the culture of impunity, the society is lost and it makes the work harder for the rest of us.
Wole Soyinka
It's my duty to fight those who have chosen to belong to the party of death, those who say they receive their orders from God somewhere and believe they have a duty to set the world on fire to achieve their own salvation.
Wole Soyinka
