Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Wole SoyinkaRead
One has to confront history honestly.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Facing history requires honesty and integrity.
Wole Soyinka's quote emphasizes the importance of confronting the truths of history without distortion or denial. To engage meaningfully with the past, one must be willing to acknowledge its complexities and the lessons it holds, fostering a clearer understanding of both individual and collective narratives.
Themes
HistoryHonestyTruthConfrontationLearning
In practice
Example use cases
In a history class, when discussing the impact of colonialism, one might say, 'As Wole Soyinka reminds us, we have to confront history honestly to learn from it.'
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.
Wole SoyinkaRead
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.
Wole SoyinkaRead
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.
Wole SoyinkaRead
I have a kind of magnetic attraction to situations of violence.
Wole SoyinkaRead
Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.
Wole SoyinkaRead
Similar quotes
Oftentimes, a history book in school will talk about the Underground Railroad as if it's one sentence. But thousands of people decided to run, and they single-handedly changed the trajectory of our nation. By running to the North, they put a face to slavery, which recruited a lot of abolitionists.
Jurnee Smollett-BellRead
The Negro was freed and turned loose as a penniless, landless, naked, ignorant laborer. Ninety-nine per cent were field hands and servants of the lowest class.
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My staff was unanimous in believing that Japan was on the point of collapse and surrender.
Douglas MacarthurRead
Momma said that ghosts couldn't move over water. That's why Africans got trapped in the Americas.. They kept moving us over the water, stealing us away from our ghosts and ancestors, who cried salty rivers into the sand. That's where Momma was now, wailing at the water's edge, while her girls were pulled out of sight under white sails that cracked in the wind.
Laurie Halse AndersonRead
History isn't really about the past - settling old scores. It's about defining the present and who we are.
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History is always changing behind us, and the past changes a little every time we retell it.
Hilary MantelRead