Chinua Achebe Quotes

When I became press secretary my father sent me a telegram and said, "Tell the truth if you can and if you can't tell the truth, don't tell a lie." That became very difficult to do.

Every generation will be challenged morally once in their life about its government, and they will have to say where they stand.

It’s a good thing when you don’t dare do something if you don’t think it’s right. But it’s not good when you think something’s not right because you don’t dare do it.

Important part of our diplomacy is that people take our words seriously.

I was shooting all this time. And there was only one guy who helped to pull him. And I had to think whether I was going to keep shooting or help the guy. And so I kept shooting and then they put him in this little clinic, and I photographed through the window while they had to amputate his leg. And I felt very strange because I didn't - I felt I could have helped, but I didn't help. But then I also felt elated that I was getting a shot that would be important to the film.

If you replace a soldier with a machine, you take away the possibility of the soldier or the policeman to not do something the state asks of him. He may think it's unethical to do it. A machine doesn't have that critical perspective.

Listen, just do what you think is right, and we'll support it." ~ Sticky Washington, The Prisoner's Dilemma

We do wrong willfully when we fail to think hard about whether what we're doing is right.

It's very, very hard to speak truth to power when the truth is unpleasant. I think it's one of the toughest things especially a young person has to do and the only way you can do it is if you're willing to walk out the door if he doesn't take your advice. Or if you're willing to walk out the door if he goes over the line.

I think language is the most important thing that human beings have ever accomplished, and the only thing that's really going to get us all out of the troubles that we find ourselves in.

Tis well when we dare not do a thing we think is not good and fair; but not so well when we think a thing not good and fair because we dare not do it.

...words are some of the most powerful and important things I know....Language is the tool of love and the weapon of hatred. It's the bright red warning flag of danger--and the stone foundation of diplomacy and peace.

When you encounter another person, when you have dealings with anyone at all, it is as if a question is being put to you. So you must think, What is the Lord asking of me in this moment, in this situation?

You can't be neutral on a moving train.

I wanted to understand. I'm not here to support one, but I am here to criticize all, on a principled position. I very much value the position of counter power. I think this is where ethics should be, in front of power as I said in Radical Reform. The power of counter-power is very important.

There is, however, one other human right which is infrequently mentioned but which seems to be destined to become very important: this is the right, or the duty, of the individual to abstain from cooperating in activities which he considers wrong or pernicious.

Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest.

It's phenomenal the kind of support Donald Trump has, despite the best efforts to suppress it, and those efforts are being made, I think it's profound, the number of people.

There were lies we told to save ourselves, and then there were lies we told to rescue others. What counted more, the mistruth, or the greater good?

To have a sense of sin means to feel guilty at there being an ethical choice to make, a guilt which, however "good" I may become, remains unchanged.

Everyone who deals with teens seems to agree that the most important and toughest job is staying in connection and conversation ... not delivering a lecture but saying what we think.

Conscience, man's moral medicine chest.

It is an absolute privilege to be able to speak another language and have it be something you grew up with. I think it's a very important thing and I think that everywhere else in the world people speak more than one language.

He’d only ever seen a gun once, a smaller one on the hip of that old deputy, a gun he’d always figured was more for show. He stuffed a fistful of deadly rounds in his pocket, thinking how each one could end an individual life, and understanding why such things were forbidden. Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one’s conscience to get in the way.

When I became secretary of state, I felt one of my primary jobs was building relationships around the world. And I did spend a lot of time and effort thinking through, How do I connect with this person?..