Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Wole SoyinkaRead
I found, when I left, that there were others who felt the same way. We'd meet, they'd come and seek me out, we'd talk about the future. And I found that their depression and pessimism was every bit as acute as mine.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the shared experience of depression and the importance of connection with others who feel similarly.
Wole Soyinka expresses a realization that upon leaving a situation, he encountered individuals who shared his feelings of depression and pessimism. This highlights the commonality of struggles with mental health and emphasizes the significance of seeking out connections with others who face similar challenges, fostering understanding and support towards a better future.
Themes
DepressionConnectionsPessimismShared ExperienceMental Health
In practice
Example use cases
In a mental health awareness event, this quote could highlight the importance of community support.
More from Wole Soyinka
All quotes →Trading 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
Sexuality poorly repressed unsettles some families; well repressed, it unsettles the whole world.
Karl KrausRead
If women will not accept marriage with subjection, nor men proffer it without, there is, there can be, no alternative. The women who will not be ruled must live without marriage. And during this transition period... single women make comfortable and attractive homes for themselves.
Susan B. AnthonyRead
Here's what I hadn't realized: the mother you haven't seen for almost thirty-six years isn't your mother, she's a stranger. Sharing DNA doesn't make you fast friends. This wasn't a joyous reunion. It was just awkward.
Jodi PicoultRead
Understanding of our fellow human beings...becomes fruitful only when it is sustained by sympathetic feelings in joy and sorrow.
Albert EinsteinRead
Do you know what people really want? Everyone, I mean. Everybody in the world is thinking: I wish there was just one other person I could really talk to, who could really understand me, who'd be kind to me. That's what people really want, if they're telling the truth.
Doris LessingRead
I've been accused of being too flexible, too willing to mold myself to men, and that's something I'm constantly working on.
Jane FondaRead