Wole Soyinka

I love beauty. But I like the beauty accidentally, not dished up, served up on a platter.

Wole Soyinka

But when you're deprived of it for a lengthy period then you value human companionship. But you have to survive and so you devise all kinds of mental exercises and it's amazing.

Wole Soyinka

But theater, because of its nature, both text, images, multimedia effects, has a wider base of communication with an audience. That's why I call it the most social of the various art forms.

Wole Soyinka

And I believe that the best learning process of any kind of craft is just to look at the work of others.

Wole Soyinka

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.

Wole Soyinka

Well, the first thing is that truth and power for me form an antithesis, an antagonism, which will hardly ever be resolved. I can define in fact, can simplify the history of human society, the evolution of human society, as a contest between power and freedom.

Wole Soyinka

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.

Wole Soyinka

And gradually they're beginning to recognize the fact that there's nothing more secure than a democratic, accountable, and participatory form of government. But it's sunk in only theoretically, it has not yet sunk in completely in practical terms.

Wole Soyinka

There is only one home to the life of a river-mussel there is only one home to the life of a tortoise there is only one shell to the soul of man: there is only one world to the spirit of our race. If that world leaves its course and smashes on boulders of the great void, whose world will give us shelter?

Wole Soyinka