Chinua Achebe

Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.

What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different ethnicity or gender.

When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we see something which you do not see.

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.

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

What a man does not know is greater than he.

A boy sent by his father to steal does not go stealthily but breaks the door with his feet.

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

There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts.

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

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.'

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

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

We have heard stories about white men who make the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true.

As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.

A child cannot pay for its mother’s milk.

Every generation must recognize and embrace the task it is peculiarly designed by history and by providence to perform.

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.

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings.

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

A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing