Chinua Achebe Quotes

When a coward sees a man he can beat he becomes hungry for a fight.

One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

ان الشمس ستشرق على أولئك الذين يقفون قبل أن تشرق على أولئك الذين يركعون تحت أقدامهم

There was a saying in Umuofia that as a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.

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.

Those whose kernels were cracked by benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble.

...Let me say that I do think decency and civilization would insist that the writer take sides with the powerless. Clearly, there's no moral obligation to write in any particular way. But there is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless. I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects.

If the clan did not exact punishment for an offense against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled all the others.

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. And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of his hands.

Eneke the bird was asked why he was always on the wing and he replied: "Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig."

Chief Nanga was a born politician; he could get away with almost anything he said or did. And as long as men are swayed by their hearts and stomachs and not their heads the Chief Nangas of the world will continue to get away with anything. He had that rare gift of making people feel - even while he was saying harsh things to them - that there was not a drop of ill will in his entire frame. I remember the day he was telling his ministerial colleague over the telephone in my presence that he distrusted our young university people and that he would rather work with a European. I knew I was hearing terrible things but somehow I couldn't bring myself to take the man seriously. He had been so open and kind to me and not in the least distrustful. The greatest criticism a man like him seemed capable of evoking in our country was an indulgent: 'Make you no min' am.

That’s all they cared for,’ [Max] said with a solemn face. ‘Women, cars, landed property. But what else can you expect when intelligent people leave politics to illiterates like Chief Nanga?

I don't believe anybody will be so unlike other people that they will be unhappy when their sons are engaged to marry.

"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 peace which it was meant to preserve.

إن أشعة الشّمس تطال هامات الواقفين قبل أن تشرق على الراكعين من تحتهم