TRIBUTE TO CHINUA ACHEBE: Life Inspiring Quotes...

"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.”



― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah

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“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.”
― Chinua Achebe

“To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.”
― Chinua Achebe

“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.”
― Chinua Achebe

“ONE OF THE TRUEST TESTS OF INTEGRITY IS ITS BLUNT REFUSAL TO BE COMPROMISED ”
― Chinua Achebe

“We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: "He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.”
― Chinua Achebe, The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays

Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.”
― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah

“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“Nobody can teach me who I am.”
― Chinua Achebe

" MY WEAPON IS LITERATURE” ― Chinua Achebe

“People create stories create people; or rather stories create people create stories.”
― Chinua Achebe

“When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”
― Chinua Achebe

“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah



“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don’t expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room. There is this complexity which seems to me to be part of the meaning of existence and everything we value.”
― Chinua Achebe

“...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.”
― Chinua Achebe, The Education of a British-Protected Child: Essays

“Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!”
― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah


“When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“Privilege, you see, is one of the great adversaries of the imagination; it spreads a thick layer of adipose tissue over our sensitivity.”
― Chinua Achebe, Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays


“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 you, Okonkwo, should bring your mother a heavy face and refuse to be comforted? Be careful or you may displease the dead. Your duty is to comfort your wives and children and take them back to your fatherland after seven years. But if you allow sorrow to weigh you down and kill you, they will all die in exile.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“When Suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat left for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”
― Chinua Achebe

“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.
”
― Chinua Achebe, Anthills of the Savannah


“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart


“There is no story that is not true.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart


“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.”
― Chinua Achebe, No Longer at Ease

“As a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.”

“Whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight, then know that something is after its life.”

“When a handshake goes below the elbow, then know that it has turned into something else.”

“It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live.”

“The man who has never submitted to anything will son submit to the burial pit.”

“Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.”

“An old man is there to talk.”

“ If the lizard of the homestead should neglect to do the things for which its kind is known, it will be mistaken for the lizard of the farmland.”

“When an adult is in the house, the she-goat is not left to suffer the pains of parturition on its tether.”
“A boy sent by his father to steal does not go stealthily but breaks the door with his feet.”

“When an old woman hears the dance she knows her old age deserts her.”

“It is only when you are close to a man that you can begin to smell his breath.”

“If a blind man does not know his own stick, tell me what else would he know ? “

“If you fail to take away a strong man’s sword when he is on the ground, will you do it when he gets up? “

“A man who avoids danger for years and then gets killed in the end has wasted his care.”

“When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.”

“A madman may sometimes speak a true word, but you watch him, he will soon add something to it that will tell you his mind is spoilt.”

“A goat does not eat into a hen’s stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.”

“A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.”

“The inquisitive eye will only blind its own sight.”

“A man who does not lick his lips, can he blame the harmattan for drying them ? “

“If we fall back, can we complain that others are rushing forward ?”

“When suffering knocks on your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”

“What a man does not know is greater than he.”

“Only a foolish man can go after a leopard with his bare hands.”

“In dealing with a man who thinks you are a fool, it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace.”

“A man may refuse to do what is asked of him but he may not refuse to be asked.”

“When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it ?”

“The death that will kill a man begins as an appetite.”

“If a man sought for a companion who acted entirely like himself, he would live in solitude.”

“He is a fool who treats his brother worse than a stranger.”

“The greatest liar among men still speaks the truth to his own son.”

“A boy who tries to wrestle with his father gets blinded by the old man’s loin cloth.”

“A woman who began cooking before another must have more broken utensils.”

“When we see an old woman stop her dance to point again and again in the same direction, we can be sure that somewhere there something happened long ago which touched the roots of her life.”

“In all great componds there must be people of all minds – some good, some bad, some fearless and some cowardly; those who bring in wealth and those who scatter it, those who give good advice and those who only speak the words of palm wine. That is why we say that whatever tune you play in the compond of a great man there is always someone to dance to it.”

“When brothers fight to death a stranger inherits their father’s estate.”

“The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.”

“A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with every-day herbs.”

“No matter how many spirits plot a man’s death, it comes to nothing unless his Chi (personal god), has a hand in the deliberation.”

“A man who means to buy palm wine does not hang about at home until all the palm wine in the market is sold.”

“If you thank a man for what he has done he will have strength to do more.”

“The language of young men is pull down and destroy; but an old man speaks of conciliation.”
“It is the fear of offence that makes men swallow poison.”

“A traveler to distant places should make no enemies”

“Travellers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves”

“A man of sense does not go hunting little bush rodents when his agemates are after big game”

“No man however great is greater than his people”

“Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache”

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