"You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams……" — 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."
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Chinua Achebe
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162 Quotes by Chinua Achebe
Chinua Achebe has 162 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
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One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.
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When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to…
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When old people speak it is not because of the sweetness of words in our mouths; it is because we…
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People say that if you find water rising up to your ankle, that's the time to do something about it,…
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I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you.…
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A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.
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The only thing we have learnt from experience is that we learn nothing from experience.
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Oh, the most important thing about myself is that my life has been full of changes. Therefore, when I observe…
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What a country needs to do is be fair to all its citizens - whether people are of a different…
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Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to…
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The problem with leaderless uprisings taking over is that you don't always know what you get at the other end.…
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Democracy is not something you put away for ten years, and then in the 11th year you wake up and…
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More All Quotes
This quote is filed under All Quotes,
one of 128,558 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
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Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally…
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No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our…
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The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well, which all men desire; all…
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The new always happens against the overwhelming odds of statistical laws and their probability, which for all practical, everyday purposes…
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Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of…
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We have almost succeeded in leveling all human activities to the common denominator of securing the necessities of life and…
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I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is…
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We must all make peace so that we can all live in peace.
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The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela,…
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As we all know, many people remain buried under tons of rubble and debris, waiting to be rescued. When we…
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Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.
— Aristophanes
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A friend to all is a friend to none.
— Aristotle
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