It is only the story...that saves our progeny from blundering like blind beggars into the spikes of the cactus fence.The story is our escort;without it,we are blind.Does the blind man own his escort?No,neither do we the story;rather,it is the story that owns us.
Interpretation
Stories guide and shape our understanding of the world, preventing us from making foolish mistakes.
Chinua Achebe emphasizes the profound role that stories play in human life. He suggests that without narratives to guide us, we are like blind individuals lost in a hostile environment. The stories we tell and share influence our choices and perceptions, and ultimately, we are shaped by the stories that have been passed down to us, making them integral to our identity and wisdom.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of literature in education.
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.
No further evidence is needed to show that 'mental illness' is not the name of a biological condition whose nature awaits to be elucidated, but is the name of a concept whose purpose is to obscure the obvious.
Government means always coercion and compulsion and is by necessity the opposite of liberty.
I have a fork and a spoon, but never a knife… as if I’m lacking manual skills or teeth. I have both, however. That’s why I’m not allowed a knife.
What we see at the cross is the white-hot revelation of the character of God, of his love providing the price that holiness requires. The cross was his means of redeeming lost sinners and reconciling them to himself, but it was also a profound disclosure of his mercy. It is, in Paul’s words, an ‘inexpressible gift’ that leads us to wonder and worship, to praise and adore the God who has given himself to us in this way.
The soul has illusions as the bird has wings: it is supported by them.
Think how different human societies would be if they were based on love rather than justice. But no such societies have ever existed on earth.
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