Life, integrity and culture: 10 Chinua Achebe quotes to remember

Chinua Achebe would have turned 85 years old today, November 16.

Chinua Achebe, who died in 2013, wrote classic books like No Longer At Ease, Anthills of the Savannah, Girls at War, Arrow of God, There Was A Country and his Magnus Opus, Things Fall Apart, which has been translated to over 58 languages worldwide.

Known for his knowledge and wisdom, here are some of Chinua Achebe’s quotes that will forever be timeless.

1. “One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”

2. “…when we are comfortable and inattentive, we run the risk of committing grave injustices absentmindedly.”

3. “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.”

4. “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.”

5. “Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe the world, I don’t expect to see it just like I was seeing the fellow who lives in the next room. There is this complexity which seems to me to be part of the meaning of existence and everything we value.”

6. “When Suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat left for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”

7. “Do not despair. I know you will not despair. You have a manly and a proud heart. A proud heart can survive a general failure because such a failure does not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone.”

8. “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.”

9. “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.”

10. “Nobody can teach me who I am.”

May his soul rest in peace.

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