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My definition of slavery is the deprivation of human volition, any form of relationship between two peoples which is based on the deprivation of volition of one side.

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
Based
Relationship
Side
Form
Volition
Human
Deprivation
Peoples
Definition
Slavery

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If man cannot, what god dare claim perfection?
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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.
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The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
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I have no money to give to you but I have ideas and organizational capacity.
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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.
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I said: A tiger does not proclaim his tigritude, he pounces. In other words: a tiger does not stand in the forest and say: I am a tiger. When you pass where the tiger has walked before, you see the skeleton of the duiker, you know that some tigritude has been emanated there.
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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.
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I am a very curious person I'll always ask: is this thing true, is it not true? And I use my own means to investigate and come to my conclusion.
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Writers - human. I shudder to think how I must sometimes appear to others.
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Each time I think Ive created time for myself, along comes a throwback to disrupt my private space.
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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.
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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.
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Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
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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.
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Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done.
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After the death of the sadistic dictator Gen. Sanni Abacha in 1998, Nigeria underwent a one-year transitional military administration headed by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who uncharacteristically bowed out precisely on the promised date for military disengagement. Did the military truly disengage, however? No.
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The man dies in all those that keep silent.
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We all have our individual artistic temperaments as well as partisanships in creative directions. And we have strong opinions on the merits of the products of our occupation.
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I am disturbed for instance when I read that a candidate said, 'I will not probe anybody or something like that'. You don't fight corruption by sweeping everything under the carpet, you don't.
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The writer is the visionary of his people... He anticipates, he warns.
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