Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.
Interpretation
Charity can mask deeper social inequalities and is often used by those with privilege to maintain the status quo.
In this quote, Chinua Achebe critiques the notion of charity as a superficial solution to systemic problems faced by the underprivileged. He implies that while charity may provide temporary relief, it ultimately serves to comfort the privileged, allowing them to continue benefiting from a flawed system rather than addressing the root causes of inequality.
In practice
During a fundraiser, to highlight the importance of addressing systemic issues rather than just providing charity.
In fact, I thought that Christianity was very a good and a very valuable thing for us. But after a while, I began to feel that the story that I was told about this religion wasn't perhaps completely whole, that something was left out.
Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
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.
It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.
Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.
An angry man is always a stupid man.
Yet it is the narrative that is the life of the dream while the events themselves are often interchangeable. The events of the waking world on the other hand are forced upon us and the narrative is the unguessed axis along which they must be strung.
While crime is punished it yet increases.
From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.
The New Testament is of full authority and open to the understanding of simple men as to the points most needful to salvation.
Revolutionary men with principles were not really different from the rest. They used their cleverness to get, in return for principles, what other men buy with their money.
They'd smash up the world if they thought it would make a pretty noise.
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