When we hear a house has fallen do we ask if the ceiling fell with it?
Interpretation
This quote reflects on our tendency to overlook the broader implications of a situation and the interconnectedness of events.
Chinua Achebe's quote suggests that when we learn about a significant event, such as a house falling, we often focus on the primary outcome rather than considering the full scope of consequences that may accompany it, like the state of the ceiling. This invites deeper reflection on how we assess situations and underscores the importance of looking beyond the surface to understand the complete picture and its ramifications.
In practice
In a discussion about infrastructure safety, this quote could highlight the importance of considering all elements of a structure.
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.
God is not in the vastness of greatness. He is hid in the vastness of smallness . He is not in the general. He is in the particular.
We come together only to go apart again. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle & misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. The law of life. No sense in battling against it.
True self is the part of us that does not change when circumstances do.
I had studied Irish history. I had read speeches from the dock. I had tried to fuse the vivid past of my nation with the lost spaces of my childhood. I had learned the battles, the ballads, the defeats. It never occurred to me that eventually the power and insistence of a national tradition would offer me only a new way of not belonging.
History will never change because of politics or conquests or theories or wars; that's mere repitition, it's been going on since the beginning of time. History will only change when we are able to use the energy of love, just as we use energy of the wind, the seas, the atom.
Allah's Generosity is connected to gratitude, and gratitude is linked to increase in His generosity. The generosity of Allah will not stop increasing unless the gratitude of the servant ceases
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