Wole Soyinka – 13 Quotes

13 Quotes by Wole Soyinka

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.

– Wole Soyinka

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.

– Wole Soyinka

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

– Wole Soyinka

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.

– Wole Soyinka

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.

– Wole Soyinka

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.

– Wole Soyinka

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.

– Wole Soyinka

There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel there is only one home to the life of a tortoise there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?

– Wole Soyinka

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.

– Wole Soyinka

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.

– Wole Soyinka

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.

– Wole Soyinka

Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie.

– Wole Soyinka

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

– Wole Soyinka