Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Wole SoyinkaRead
The man dies in all those that keep silent.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote suggests that silence in the face of injustice or truth leads to moral decay and a loss of humanity.
Wole Soyinka's quote underscores the importance of speaking out against oppression and injustices. It implies that by remaining silent, individuals not only fail to fight for what is right but also diminish their own humanity and essence, as they become complicit in the silence that allows wrongdoings to persist.
Themes
SilenceTruthInjusticeOppressionHumanity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a speech advocating for social justice.
More from Wole Soyinka
All quotes βTrading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent.
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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.
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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.
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I have a kind of magnetic attraction to situations of violence.
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Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.
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