Wole Soyinka
Wole Soyinka
Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Babatunde Soyinkais a Nigerian playwright and poet. He was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to be honored in that category...
NationalityNigerian
ProfessionPlaywright
Date of Birth13 July 1934
CityAbeokuta, Nigeria
CountryNigeria
being-yourself positivity just-be-yourself
Be yourself. Ultimately just be yourself.
inspirational criticism absence
The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
taken care facts
You cannot live a normal existence if you haven't taken care of a problem that affects your life and affects the lives of others, values that you hold which in fact define your very existence.
hands ethnicity people
Only 4 sets of people can vote for the PDP: (1) those who are intellectually blind; (2) those who are blinded by ethnicity; (3) those who are blinded by corruption and therefore afraid of the unknown, should power change hands; and finally (4) those who are suffering from a combination of the above terminal sicknesses.
choices culture degradation
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.
violence students accepting
I never hesitated, as a student, in embracing the necessity of violence. In South Africa, I didn't just accept it; I looked forward to it as a mission.
country oil convinced
I am convinced that Nigeria would have been a more highly developed country without the oil. I wished we'd never smelled the fumes of petroleum.
humanity matter world
We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.
confidence thinking self
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.
taken thinking names
Well, I think the Yoruba gods are truthful. Truthful in the sense that i consider religion and the construct of deities simply an extension of human qualities taken, if you like, to the nth degree. i mistrust gods who become so separated from humanity that enormous crimes can be committed in their names. i prefer gods who can be brought down to earth and judged, if you like.
adventure pride giving
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.
hands dip pot
The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.
sometimes poet
Some of us – poets are not exactly poets. We live sometimes – beyond the word.
twilight sadness kissing
Sadness is twilight's kiss on earth.