Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Wole SoyinkaRead
I take friendship very seriously.
Interpretation
Friendship is a deep and important bond that should be valued and respected.
The quote by Wole Soyinka emphasizes the significance of friendship in human relationships, highlighting that true friendship is not to be taken lightly. It speaks to the idea that friends play a crucial role in our lives and that cultivating and nurturing these relationships requires sincerity and commitment.
In practice
During a speech at a gathering about relationships, I would quote Soyinka to emphasize the importance of valuing friendships.
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.
When true friends meet in adverse hour; 'Tis like a sunbeam through a shower. A watery way an instant seen, The darkly closing clouds between.
There's a communion of more than our bodies when bread is broken and wine drunk.
Few delights can equal the presence of one whom we trust utterly.
A kind and gentle heart he had, To comfort friends and foes; The naked every day he clad When he put on his clothes.
Surround yourself with people strong enough to change your mind.
If hatred strikes you, if you get accused, thrown to the lions, you can expect one of two reactions from people who know you: some of them will join in the kill, the others will discreetly pretend to know nothing, hear nothing, so you can go right on seeing them and talking to them. That second category, discreet and tactful, those are your friends. 'Friends' in the modern sense of the term. Listen, Jean-Marc, I've known that forever.
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