110+ Chinua Achebe Quotes On Colonialism, Education And Kinsmen

Chinua Achebe was a Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic. He is best known for his first novel, Things Fall Apart, which is the most widely read book in modern African literature. Achebe's works are known for their thoughtful exploration of the traditions and values of Igbo culture and the human experience in general. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Chinua Achebe on colonialism, education, kinsmen.

Top 10 Chinua Achebe Quotes

1. There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.
2. Become familiar with your home, but know also about your neighbors. The young man who never went anywhere thinks his mother is the greatest cook.
3. The damage done in one year can sometimes take ten or twenty years to repair.
4. As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.
5. A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness
6. The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.
7. A goat does not eat into a hen's stomach no matter how friendly the two may be.
8. There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.
9. There is no story that is not true.
10. The sun will shine on those who stand before it shines on those who kneel under them.

Chinua Achebe Image Quotes

A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness — Chinua Achebe

A goat does not eat into a hen's stomach no matter how friendly the two may be. — Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe Short Quotes

• A man of worth never gets up to unsay what he said yesterday.
• When a mad man walks naked, it is his kinsmen who feel shame, not himself.
• Charity . . . is the opium of the privileged.
• The price a world language must be prepared to pay is submission to many different kinds of use.
• No man however great is greater than his people
• An angry man is always a stupid man.
• Do you blame a vulture for perching over a carcass?
• A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.
• Procrastination is a lazy man's apology.
• Nigeria is what it is because its leaders are not what they should be.

Chinua Achebe Quotes About Writing

If you don't like someone's story, write your own. — Chinua Achebe

If you don't like someone's story, write your own. If you don't like what somebody says, say what it is you don't like. — Chinua Achebe

When Rimbaud became a slave trader, he stopped writing poetry. — Chinua Achebe

Most writers who are beginners, if they are honest with themselves, will admit that they are praying for a readership as they begin to write. But it should be the quality of the craft, not the audience, that should be the greatest motivating factor. — Chinua Achebe

If someone said, I want to translate your novel into Igbo, I would say, Go ahead. But when I write in the Igbo language, I write my own dialect. I write some poetry in that dialect. — Chinua Achebe

Many writers can't make a living. So to be able to teach how to write is valuable to them. But I don't really know about its value to the student. I don't mean it's useless. But I wouldn't have wanted anyone to teach me how to write. — Chinua Achebe

I'm very primitive; I write with a pen. — Chinua Achebe

If I write novels in a country in which most citizens are illiterate, who then is my community? — Chinua Achebe

I think dialects should be left alone. People should write in whatever dialect they feel they want to write. In the fullness of time, these dialects will sort themselves out. — Chinua Achebe

The writer is often faced with two choices--turn away from the reality of life's intimidating complexity or conquer its mystery by battling with it. The writer who chooses the former soon runs out of energy and produces elegantly tired fiction. — Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe Quotes About Things Fall Apart

The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart. — Chinua Achebe

You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies. — Chinua Achebe

The world is large,” said Okonkwo. “I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his wife and her family.” “That cannot be,” said Machi. “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies. — Chinua Achebe

Among the Igbo the art of conversation is regarded very highly, and proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten. — Chinua Achebe

Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. — Chinua Achebe

There is no story that is not true, [...] The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others. — Chinua Achebe

No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man. — Chinua Achebe

An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb — Chinua Achebe

When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for a walk — Chinua Achebe

If I hold her hand she says, ‘Don’t touch!’ If I hold her foot she says ‘Don’t touch!’ But when I hold her waist-beads she pretends not to know. — Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe Quotes About Habit

You must develop the habit of skepticism, not swallow every piece of superstition you are told by witch-doctors and professors. — Chinua Achebe

They have not always elected the best leaders, particularly after a long period in which they have not used this facility of free election. You tend to lose the habit. — Chinua Achebe

If you were to loose the habit of making the effort to get the book and read the words one by one you would have lost something terribly important. So I think that we have a task to ensure that this doesn't happen. — Chinua Achebe

Chinua Achebe Famous Quotes And Sayings

We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: 'He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.' — Chinua Achebe

Mosquito [...] had asked Ear to marry him, whereupon Ear fell on the floor in uncontrollable laughter. "How much longer do you think you will live?" she asked. "You are already a skeleton." Mosquito went away humiliated, and any time he passed her way he told Ear that he was still alive. — Chinua Achebe

A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so. — Chinua Achebe

A man who pays respect to the great paves the way for his own greatness — Chinua Achebe

A goat does not eat into a hen's stomach no matter how friendly the two may be. — Chinua Achebe

People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them. This is what people have come to expect. Its not viewed as a serious continent. Its a place of strange, bizarre and illogical things, where people dont do what common sense demands. — Chinua Achebe

When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool. — Chinua Achebe

...when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly. — Chinua Achebe

While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary. — Chinua Achebe

Now one of the changes that must come to Africa is the idea of limited rule, I mean in term of how long one leader can stay in power. The era of president for life is not gone yet but it is on its way out and that is one of the problems with Mugabe and others. — Chinua Achebe

What I can say is that it was clear to many of us that an indigenous African literary renaissance was overdue. A major objective was to challenge stereotypes, myths, and the image of ourselves and our continent, and to recast them through stories- prose, poetry, essays, and books for our children. That was my overall goal. — Chinua Achebe

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. — Chinua Achebe

I believe in the complexity of the human story, and that there's no way you can tell that story in one way and say, 'this is it.' Always there will be someone who can tell it differently depending on where they are standing ... this is the way I think the world's stories should be told: from many different perspectives. — Chinua Achebe

I think not just Nigeria but I think the whole of Africa has to turn back to the rural areas and that's where the majority of the citizens are and that's where the engine of of development has to be found. — Chinua Achebe

You do not know me,’ said Tortoise. ‘I am a changed man. I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself. — Chinua Achebe

One reason why I am quite angry with what is happening in Nigeria today is that everything has collapsed. If I decide to go back now, there will be so many problems - where will I find the physical therapy and other things that I now require? — Chinua Achebe

The whole idea of a stereotype is to simplify. Instead of going through the problem of all this great diversity - that it's this or maybe that - you have just one large statement; it is this. — Chinua Achebe

The lizard that jumped from a high Iroko tree to the ground said he would praise himself if no-one else did. — Chinua Achebe

Africa is to Europe as the picture is to Dorian Gray-a carrier onto whom the master unloads his physical & moral deformities — Chinua Achebe

Storytellers are a threat. They threaten all champions of control, they frighten usurpers of the right-to-freedom of the human spirit -- in state, in church or mosque, in party congress, in the university or wherever. — Chinua Achebe

Diversity is not an abnormality but the very reality of our planet. The human world manifests the same reality and will not seek our permission to celebrate itself in the magnificence of its endless varieties. Civility is a sensible attribute in this kind of world we have; narrowness of heart and mind is not. — Chinua Achebe

You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree — the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men. — Chinua Achebe

Only the story can continue beyond the war and the warrior. The story outlives the sound of the war drum... The story is our escort. Without it we are blind... It is the thing that sets us apart from cattle. — Chinua Achebe

I am against people reaping where they have not sown. But we have a saying that if you want to eat a toad you should look for a fat and juicy one. — Chinua Achebe

An artist, in my understanding of the word, should side with the people against the Emperor that oppresses his or her people. — Chinua Achebe

Every lizard lies on its belly, so we cannot tell which has a belly-ache — Chinua Achebe

It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live. — Chinua Achebe

When I think of the standing, the importance and the erudition of all these people who see nothing about racism in Heart of Darkness, I'm convinced that we must really be living in different worlds. — Chinua Achebe

In the vocabulary of certain radical theorists contradictions are given the status of some deadly disease to which their opponents alone can succumb. But contradictions are the very stuff of life. If there had been a little dash of contradiction among the Gadarene swine some of them might have been saved from drowning. — Chinua Achebe

Nigeria has had a complicated colonial history. My work has examined that part of our story extensively. — Chinua Achebe

In Nigeria, there is energy, whether it is Lagos, which is sheer anarchy, but it is not lethargic. It is strong, even aggressive and if that energy could be directed to work it will produce really enormous results. — Chinua Achebe

As our fathers said, you can tell a ripe corn by its look. — Chinua Achebe

Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and start practicing again. We have to begin to learn to rule ourselves again. — Chinua Achebe

We shall all live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch and let the egret perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break. — Chinua Achebe

The singer should sing well even if it is merely to himself, rather than dance badly for the whole world. — Chinua Achebe

My position is that serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. I don’t see how art can be called art if its purpose is to frustrate humanity. To make humanity uncomfortable, yes. But intrinsically to be against humanity, that I don’t take. — Chinua Achebe

The women are, of course, the biggest single group of oppressed people in the world and, if we are to believe the Book of Genesis, the very oldest. — Chinua Achebe

I grew up recognizing that there was nobody to give me any advice and that you do your best and if it's not good enough, someday you will come to terms with that. — Chinua Achebe

If you're rooted to a spot, you miss a lot of the grace. So you keep moving, and this is the way I think the world's stories should be told - from many different perspectives. — Chinua Achebe

A toad does not run in the daytime for nothing — Chinua Achebe

If a child washed his hands, he could eat with kings. — Chinua Achebe

Beware Okonkwo!" she warned. "Beware of exchanging words with Agbala. Does a man speak when a god speaks? Beware! — Chinua Achebe

A man's life from birth to death was a series of transition rites which brought him nearer and nearer to his ancestors. — Chinua Achebe

I have found that I work best when I am at home in Nigeria. But one learns to work in other places. — Chinua Achebe

Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings. — Chinua Achebe

It is the story that owns and directs us. It is the thing that makes us different from cattle; it is the mark on the face that sets one people apart from their neighbors. — Chinua Achebe

When I began going to school and learned to read, I encountered stories of other people and other lands. In one of my essays, I remember the kind of things that fascinated me. Weird things, even, about a wizard who lived in Africa and went to China to find a lamp... Fascinating to me because they were about things remote, and almost ethereal. — Chinua Achebe

The triumph of the written word is often attained when the writer achieves union and trust with the reader, who then becomes ready to be drawn into unfamiliar territory, walking in borrowed literary shoes so to speak, toward a deeper understanding of self or society, or of foreign peoples, cultures, and situations. — Chinua Achebe

At the most one could say that his chi or ... personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed. — Chinua Achebe

Let the kite perch and let the eagle perch too – If one says no to the other, let his wing break. — Chinua Achebe

We have heard stories about white men who make the powerful guns and the strong drinks and took slaves away across the seas, but no one thought the stories were true. — Chinua Achebe

The rural areas have been deprived by the cities in the past. Development resources and energy should be directed where the people live. — Chinua Achebe

I find Nigeria very frustrating. I am not alone in this. There are many Nigerians abroad. As you know, the brain drain is just incredible. And when we talk to one another and there is a certain sense of frustration and but I struggle not to let the frustration degenerate into dispair. — Chinua Achebe

Once you have really done all you can, then you can show it to people. But I find this is increasingly not the case with the younger people. They do a first draft and want somebody to finish it off for them with good advice. — Chinua Achebe

Men have learned to shoot without missing their mark and I have learned to fly without perching on a twig. — Chinua Achebe

You don't ever want to say to a young person, You can't, or, You are no good. Some people might be able to do it, but I don't think I am a policeman for literature. So I tell them, Sweat it out, do your best. — Chinua Achebe

Actually, I identify with all my characters, good and bad. I have to do that in order to make them genuine. I have to understand them even if I don't approve of them. Not completely - it's impossible; complete identification is, in fact, not desirable. — Chinua Achebe

Serious and good art has always existed to help, to serve, humanity. Not to indict. — Chinua Achebe

Americans, it seems to me, tend to protect their children from the harshness of life, in their interest. That's not the way my people rear their children. They let them experience the world as it is. — Chinua Achebe

A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it. — Chinua Achebe

I'm sure if one turned one's mind back from grandiose faults to what is happening to the average man or woman or child in the rural areas, we will probably find that's where the energy for development is. — Chinua Achebe

We must now turn from considering the necessary struggle with language arising, as it were, from its very nature and the nature of the society it serves to the more ominous threat to its integrity brought about neither by its innate inadequacy nor yet by the incompetence and carelessness of its ordinary users, but rather engineered deliberately by those who will manipulate words for their own ends. — Chinua Achebe

Joseph Conrad was a thoroughgoing racist. That this simple truth is glossed over in criticisms of his work is due to the fact that white racism against Africa is such a normal way of thinking that its manifestations go completely unremarked. — Chinua Achebe

If the clan did not exact punishment for an offense against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled all the others. — Chinua Achebe

Travellers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves — Chinua Achebe

The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership. — Chinua Achebe

It is not quite true to say that I am not an advocate of writing in African languages. What I think is, one has to think about what is practicable. — Chinua Achebe

Real tragedy is never resolved. It goes on hopelessly for ever. — Chinua Achebe

Poetry and slave trading cannot be bedfellows. That's where I stand. — Chinua Achebe

If the economy of a country collapses completely and the hospitals are no longer able to function as hospitals, it will be very difficult to tell every doctor to stay home to work without drugs, to work without equipment. You might tell some to stay but there a lot of young people who are at the beginning of their careers who would be very difficult to persuade. — Chinua Achebe

If you only hear one side of the story, you have no understanding at all. — Chinua Achebe

Nobody can teach me who I am. — Chinua Achebe

We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck. — Chinua Achebe

In my definition I am a protest writer, with restraint. — Chinua Achebe

"You sound as if you question the authority and the decision of the Oracle, who said he should die." "I do not. Why should I? But the Oracle did not ask me to carry out its decision." [...] "The Earth cannot punish me for obeying her mesenger," Okonkwo said. "A child's fingers are not scalded by a piece of hot yam which its mother puts into its palm." — Chinua Achebe

Life Lessons by Chinua Achebe

1. Chinua Achebe's work demonstrates the importance of understanding and appreciating different cultures, and of recognizing the value of diverse perspectives.
2. He also emphasizes the power of storytelling and the need to ensure that the stories of marginalized people are heard.
3. Finally, Achebe's work encourages readers to think critically about their own beliefs and values, and to challenge oppressive systems.