Chinua Achebe Quotes

But I don't believe in guilt by association.

Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt.

It's hard to determine where lies culpability.

Mrs Woolf's complaint should be addressed to her creator, who made her, rather than me.

With regard to what is done in drunkenness, this state, voluntarily contracted, does not hinder the imputation of a bad action.

There are in nature neither rewards nor punishments — there are only consequences.

No one is innocent, and people are allowed to criticize everyone.

Men do monstrous things but if you call a man a monster you have absolved yourself of blame. You don't have to think that you might ever do these things. I don't think that's true

There exists in our society widespread fear of judging…[B]ehind the unwillingness to judge lurks the suspicion that no one is a free agent, and hence doubt that anyone is responsible or could be expected to answer for what he has done…Who has ever maintained that by judging a wrong I presuppose that I myself would be incapable of committing it?

A fate is not a punishment.

Condemn the fault and not the actor of it?

Let him who is without guilt cast the first stone. A trap. Because then he will be no longer without guilt.

The urging of that word, judgment, hath bred a kind of remorse in me.

Creatures which, lacking mankind's superior brain power, did not concern themselves with finding someone to blame, and instead tried to find someone to eat.

One thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it-- it was the black kitten's fault entirely.

Once we see an aspect of what we or someone else does as something that happens, we lose our grip on the idea that it has been done and that we can judge the doer and not just the happening.

Men were considered "free" only so that they might be considered guilty - could be judged and punished: consequently, every act had to be considered as willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness (and thus the most fundamental psychological deception was made the principle of psychology itself).

If a person is stupid, we excuse him by saying that he cannot help it; but if we attempted to excuse in precisely the same way the person who is bad, we should be laughed at.

No use saying necessity is making a mistake.

Buzzards got to eat, same as the worms.

When we see an effect happen always in the same manner, we infer that it takes place by a natural necessity; as, for instance, that the sun will rise to morrow; but nature often deceives us, and will not submit to its own rules.

Clean your finger before you point at my spots.

What will we answer to Him about that child, that old father and mother, because they are His creation, they are children of God.

Total evil. dang, his principal had been right all along... he really was demonspawn.