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f1ff158
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While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.
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compassion
brotherly-love
charity
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Chinua Achebe |
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95babff
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The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.
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things-fall-apart
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Chinua Achebe |
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21e8bd6
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There is no story that is not true, [...] The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.
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Chinua Achebe |
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de03ff6
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We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb "He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down."
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Chinua Achebe |
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66bfe38
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A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.
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Chinua Achebe |
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029ee43
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Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.
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paraphrased
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Chinua Achebe |
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4e5ac38
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There is no story that is not true.
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Chinua Achebe |
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2e372f8
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If you don't like my story,write your own
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Chinua Achebe |
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4eea6f3
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If I hold her hand she says, 'Don't touch!' If I hold her foot she says 'Don't touch!' But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know.
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Chinua Achebe |
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ec21530
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When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk
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Chinua Achebe |
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c654593
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Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit -- in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever.
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story
storytellers
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Chinua Achebe |
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e71909a
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Then listen to me,' he said and cleared his throat. 'It's true that a child belongs to its father. But when a father beats his child, it seeks sympathy in its mother's hut. A man belongs to his fatherland when things are good and life is sweet. But when there is sorrow and bitterness he finds refuge in his motherland. Your mother is there to protect you. She is buried there. And that is why we say that mother is supreme. Is it right that yo..
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Chinua Achebe |
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082c7e2
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Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten.
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literature
african
african-authors
african-literature
literature-quotes
literary-quotes
literary-fiction
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Chinua Achebe |
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0b59aa9
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Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.
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meritocracy
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Chinua Achebe |
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f491e7d
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Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of weakness. It was deeper and more intimate that the fear of evil and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of the forces of nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwo's fear was greater than these. It was not external but lay deep within himself.
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Chinua Achebe |
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e9e8ee4
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Do not despair. I know you will not despair. You have a manly and a proud heart. A proud heart can survive a general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.
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Chinua Achebe |
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5935631
|
The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.
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Chinua Achebe |
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2be9c41
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Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.
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Chinua Achebe |
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5de9013
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when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.
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Chinua Achebe |
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0ee3493
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Mr. Brown had thought of nothing but numbers. He should have known that the kingdom of God did not depend on large crowds. Our Lord Himself stressed the importance of fewness. Narrow is the way and few the number. To fill the Lord's holy temple with an idolatrous crowd clamoring for signs was a folly of everlasting consequence. Our Lord used the whip only once in His life - to drive the crowd away from His church.
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religion
crowds
church
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Chinua Achebe |
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4443631
|
A child cannot pay for its mother's milk.
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Chinua Achebe |
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ece59a7
|
You do not know me,' said Tortoise. 'I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.
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Chinua Achebe |
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51f660c
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Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
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Chinua Achebe |
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889db0c
|
It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.
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Chinua Achebe |
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1a169fa
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Mosquito [...] had asked Ear to marry him, whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. "How much longer do you think you will live?" she asked. "You are already a skeleton." Mosquito went away humiliated, and any time he passed her way he told Ear that he was still alive."
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Chinua Achebe |
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04f6a7f
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The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.
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life-lessons
philosophy-of-life
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Chinua Achebe |
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b2011b2
|
At the most one could say that his chi or ... personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed.
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willpower
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Chinua Achebe |
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fce5358
|
The world is large," said Okonkwo. "I have even heard that in some tribes a man's children belong to his wife and her family." "That cannot be," said Machi. "You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies." --
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Chinua Achebe |
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6be2296
|
There was a saying in Umuofia that as a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.
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Chinua Achebe |
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d4b97ff
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Eneke the bird says that since men have learned to shoot without missing, he has learned to fly without perching.
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Chinua Achebe |
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2d07771
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Some people flinch when you talk about art in the context of the needs of society thinking you are introducing something far too common for a discussion of art. Why should art have a purpose and a use? Art shouldn't be concerned with purpose and reason and need, they say. These are improper. But from the very beginning, it seems to me, stories have indeed been meant to be enjoyed, to appeal to that part of us which enjoys good form and good..
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pushing-the-limits
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Chinua Achebe |
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437c4f5
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You think you are the greatest sufferer in the world? Do you know that men are sometimes banished for life? Do you know that men sometimes lose all their yams and even their children? I had six wives once. I have none now except that young girl who knows not her right from her left. Do you know how many children I have buried--children I begot in my youth and strength? Twenty-two. I did not hang myself, and I am still alive.
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Chinua Achebe |
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d66e567
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There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.
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Chinua Achebe |
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cfec23f
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Procrastination is a lazy man's apology.
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Chinua Achebe |
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67fc855
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If you had been poor in your last life I would have asked you to be rich when you come again. But you were rich. If you had been a coward, I would have asked you to bring courage. But you were a fearless warrior. If you had died young, I would have asked you to get life. But you lived long. So I shall ask you to come again the way you came before.
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Chinua Achebe |
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81d67f6
|
Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.
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Chinua Achebe |
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740acbb
|
Charity ... is the opium of the privileged; from the good citizen who habitually drops ten kobo from his loose change and from a safe height above the bowl of the leper outside the supermarket; to the group of good citizens (like youselfs) who donate water so that some Lazarus in the slums can have a syringe boiled clean as a whistle for his jab and his sores dressed more hygienically than the rest of him; to the Band Aid stars that lit up ..
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Chinua Achebe |
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46408cf
|
Women and music should not be dated.
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Chinua Achebe |
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3d182b7
|
It is only the story...that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence.The story is our escort;without it,we are blind.Does the blind man own his escort?No,neither do we the story;rather,it is the story that owns us.
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Chinua Achebe |
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df597ee
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People from different parts of the world can respond to the same story if it says something to them about their own history and their own experience.
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nigeria
worldview
south-korea
|
Chinua Achebe |
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84ee194
|
When mother-cow is chewing grass its young ones watch its mouth
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motherhood
education
life
teaching
|
Chinua Achebe |
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585c8b0
|
Ogbuef Ezedudu,who was the oldest man in the village, was telling two other men when they came to visit him that the punishment for breaking the Peace of Ani had become very mild in their clan. "It has not always been so," he said. "My father told me that he had been told that in the past a man who broke the peace was dragged on the ground through the village until he died. but after a while this custom was stopped because it spoiled the p..
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Chinua Achebe |
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e5394c4
|
Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.
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writing
|
Chinua Achebe |
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fedc035
|
When a man is at peace with his gods and ancestors, his harvest will be good or bad according to the strength of his arm.
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Chinua Achebe |