Wole Soyinka Quotes

We were like heroes, to stand there and observe the police, and the police were scared to move upon us.

There is no way a spirit of resistance that has sunk so deep in the population can be repressed.

Wherever there are communities fighting for freedom and liberation, there are serious tensions.

I've never really subscribed to the theory that repression breeds rebellion. I don't think that's really true.

In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses, and every refusal to act excites their contempt.

At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this. It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in.

Despair and frustration will not shake our belief that the resistance is the only way of liberation.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

People have a right to violence, to rebel, to fight back.

An oppressed people will always rise.

If we got into a situation where people start burning our records, then bring it on. That's the whole point. The gloaming has begun. We're in the darkness. This has happened before. Go read some history.

They think that, if we were just smart enough, we'd be able to understand their policies. And I so want to tell 'em, and I do tell 'em, Oh, we're plenty smart, oh yeah - we know what's goin' on. And we don't like what's goin' on. And we're not gonna let them tell us to sit down and shut up.

If I was a Greek citizen I'd be out there trying to bring down this monstrosity that has been put upon those people.

My fellow revolutionaries, liberation is a noble cause. We must fight to obtain it.

The seed of revolution is repression.

The best hope to smash Fascism in the world.

If officials are too forceful, people will revolt.

The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence.

For we went, changing our country more often than our shoes In the class war, despairing When there was only injustice and no resistance

Who are we to judge the people of Ecuador? We cannot condemn people when they take to the streets.

Neither God, nor angels, or just men, command you to suffer for a single moment. Therefore it is your solemn and imperative duty to use every means, both moral, intellectual, and physical, that promise success .... Brethren, arise, arise! Strike for your lives and liberties.... Let your motto be resistance, resistance, resistance!

The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries.

Rebellion is the necessary result of injustice. It may not always achieve its purpose, or be intended to do so, but a conviction of injustice endured must precede articulate rebellion. Nor is it always certain that injustice will be followed by rebellion – it would be very much better for the world if this was the case. But where the victims of aggression or custom are ignorant and disunited, the opportunities for reasoned and effective revolt are practically reduced to nothing…

It is repression that creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom.

I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolute.