Wole Soyinka Quotes, Sayings, Remarks, Thoughts and Speeches
Wole Soyinka Quotes and Sayings
- 1
And gradually they're beginning to recognize the fact that there's nothing more secure than a democratic, accountable, and participatory form of government. But it's sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical terms.
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- 2
And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.
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- 3
Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.
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- 4
But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That's all.
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- 5
But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms.
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- 6
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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- 7
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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- 8
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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- 9
I don't really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.
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- 10
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.
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- 11
I grew up in an atmosphere where words were an integral part of culture.
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- 12
I think that feeling that if one believed absolutely in any cause, then one must have the confidence, the self-certainty, to go through with that particular course of action.
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- 13
I'm not one of those writers I learned about who get up in the morning, put a piece of paper in their typewriter machine and start writing. That I've never understood.
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- 14
Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there's a lot of work to be done.
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- 15
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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- 16
One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.
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- 17
One, a mass movement from within, which, as you know, is constantly being put down brutally but which, again, regroups and moves forward as is happening right now as we are speaking.
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- 18
Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.
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- 19
See, even despite pious statements to the contrary, much of the industrialized world has not yet come to terms with the recognition of the fallacy of what I call the strong man syndrome.
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- 20
The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
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- 21
The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
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- 22
The novel, for me, was an accident. I really don't consider myself a novelist.
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- 23
There are different kinds of artists and very often, I'll be very frank with you, I wish I were a different kind.
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- 24
There's a kind of dynamic quality about theater and that dynamic quality expresses itself in relation to, first of all, the environment in which it's being staged; then the audience, the nature of the audience, the quality of the audience.
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- 25
There's something about the theater which makes my fingertips tingle.
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- 26
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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- 27
Well, first of all I'll say that I come alive best in theater.
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- 28
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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