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.
I believe that in this new world that we live in, we often have a responsibility, you know, to actually go beyond the thou shalt nots - that is, the not harming others - and say we can help others and we should be helping others.
It is impossible to live in the past, difficult to live in the present and a waste to live in the future.
There is no holy life. There is no war between good and evil. There is no sin and no redemption. None of these things matter to the real you. But they all matter hugely to the false you, the one who believes in the separate self. You have tried to take your separate self, with all its loneliness and anxiety and pride, to the door of enlightenment. But it will never go through, because it is a ghost.
There's the constant concern with what happens to you when you die. Every society thinks about that and makes things to deal with that.
I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.
It's very attractive to people to be a victim. Instead of having to think out the whole situation, about history and your group and what you are doing... if you begin from the point of view of being a victim, you've got it half-made. I mean intellectually.
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