Top 80 Wole Soyinka Quotes

Human life has meaning only to that degree and as long as it is lived in the service of humanity.

I take friendship very seriously.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Those nations that say it’s a crime to preach your religion are making a terrible mistake. All they’re doing is driving underground other forms of spiritual intuitions and practices.

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.

I’ve done a lot of guerrilla theater in my time.

Looking at faces of people, one gets the feeling there’s a lot of work to be done.

I’ve always written plays for the purpose of getting something out of my system.

I don’t have the sort of temperament that submits to Christianity or Islam.

All religions accept that there is something called ‘criminality.’ And criminality cannot be excused by religious fervour.

The hand that dips into the bottom of the pot will eat the biggest snail.

Under a dictatorship, a nation ceases to exist. All that remains is a fiefdom, a planet of slaves regimented by aliens from outer space.

Writers and intellectuals have a duty to humanity. It is to insist that the human entity remains the primary asset in overall development; thus, it must be safeguarded.

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.

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.

Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress the truth.

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.

And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.

Nigeria has had the misfortune – no, the fortune – of seeing the worst face of capitalism anywhere in Africa. The masses have seen it, they are disgusted, and they want an alternative.

Some of the greatest uprisings and consequent civil wars in Mexico have centered squarely on the ownership of land.

Even when I’m writing plays I enjoy having company and mentally I think of that company as the company I’m writing for.

Just like birds, hunters know no borders.

No writer has a right to make that much money. Indeed, without diabolical assistance, no writer can.

Well, first of all I’ll say that I come alive best in theater.

Education is lacking in most of those who pontificate.

The Sudanese government has been playing games with the world, with the Africa Union, in particular, have been playing for time in order to conclude its mission of ethnic cleansing in the Sudan.

There’s no way to escape the culture that has evolved, from which we ourselves have evolved. Naturally, we stress it, break it up, reassemble it to suit our own needs. But it is there – a source of vital strength.

I consider the process of gestation just as important as when you’re actually sitting down putting words to the paper.

A tiger does not shout its tigritude, it acts.

History teaches us to beware of the excitation of the liberated and the injustices that often accompany their righteous thirst for justice.

But the ultimate lesson is just sit down and write. That’s all.

Politics, I believe, is a full-time occupation.

I am a glutton for tranquility.

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.

One’s own self-worth is tied to the worth of the community to which one belongs, which is intimately connected to humanity in general. What happens in Darfur becomes an assault on my own community, and on me as an individual. That’s what the human family is all about.

My father was a schoolteacher, and so I had the advantage of both western educational instruction in the school, as well as what you might call the process of imbibing the traditional processes of education instruction around me.

There is something really horrific for any human being who feels he is being consumed by other people. I’m talking about a writer’s critics, who don’t address what you’ve written, but want to probe into your existence and magnify the trivia of your life without any sense of humor, without any sense of context.

The scales of reckoning with mortality are never evenly weighted, alas, and thus it is on the shoulders of the living that the burden of justice must continue to rest.

We live in a materialist world, and materialism appeals so strongly to humanity, no matter where.

African film makers are scraping by on a mere pittance.

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.’

Rwanda, which is one of the younger independent states in Africa, must be regarded as a model of how great human trauma can be transformed to commence true reconstruction of people. Human trauma can lead to stunted growth and mass withdrawal.

Given the scale of trauma caused by the genocide, Rwanda has indicated that however thin the hope of a community can be, a hero always emerges. Although no one can dare claim that it is now a perfect state, and that no more work is needed, Rwanda has risen from the ashes as a model or truth and reconciliation.

An idyllic period of my existence was when I had a den attached to my home… a writing den, and no one had access to that unless they had their own special visa, applied for weeks in advance.

Trading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent.

I like my peace and quiet whenever I can grab it.

Seven is the magic figure, because that’s a symbolic figure of my favorite deity, Ogun.

The Nation of Islam provides an antidote in the United States to fundamentalist Islam – which is why individuals from America have to go abroad to find radical teachings.

When I write plays, I’m already seeing the shapes on stage, of the actors and their interaction, and so on and so forth. I don’t think I’ve ever written one play as an abstract piece, as a literary piece, floating in the air somewhere, to be flushed out later on.

The blatant aggressiveness of theocracies I find distressing, because I grew up when Christians, Muslim and animists lived peacefully together.

If African film makers had one-tenth the amount commanded by film makers the world over – even the amount used by so-called shoestring film makers – I think we would see quite an explosion of African films on the world scene.

The phenomenon of creativity, we know, is closely related to the ability to yoke together separate, and even seemingly incompatible, matrices.

We Nigerians must reclaim our sovereignty, our civic entitlements.

A war, with its attendant human suffering, must, when that evil is unavoidable, be made to fragment more than buildings: It must shatter the foundations of thought and re-create. Only in this way does every individual share in the cataclysm and understand the purpose of sacrifice.

My understanding of the creative process is simply that all cultures and all concerns meet at a certain point, the human point in which everything is related to one another. That has been my creative experience. I never know who’s influencing me at any time.

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.

One thing I can tell you is this, that I am not a methodical writer.

I don’t really consider myself a novelist, it just came out purely by accident.

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.

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.