Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Wole SoyinkaRead
Some African leaders actually dare to suggest that democracy is a concept alien to traditional African society. This is one of the most impudent political blasphemies I can think of.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes the notion that democracy is incompatible with African traditions.
Wole Soyinka's quote challenges the misguided belief held by some African leaders that democracy does not align with traditional African values. He describes this view as a severe political offense, highlighting the importance of recognizing the compatibility of democratic principles with diverse cultural backgrounds.
In practice
At a political rally to emphasize the values of democracy.
Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Trading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent.
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.
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.
I have a kind of magnetic attraction to situations of violence.
Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.
Seeking Why run around sprinkling holy water? There's an ocean inside you, and when you're ready you'll drink.
My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them (the framers of the Constitution) to speak the language of 'We, the People,' instead of 'We, the States'?
We need a coat with two pockets. In one pocket there is dust, and in the other pocket there is gold. We need a coat with two pockets to remind us who we are.
Aliens might be surprised to learn that in a cosmos with limitless starlight, humans kill for energy sources buried in the sand
Sometimes you want to whisper in God's ear, "God, we know you are in charge, but why don't you make it slightly more obvious?"
The noblest of all studies is the study of what man is and of what life he should live.
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