Wole Soyinka Quotes

The main thing is the ‘rule of corruption’: helping the horse both to race and also to get a mouthful of hay. It’s what all civil servants are secretly thinking. Our expectations for our civil servants are far too high, far too grandiose. The pressure is more than their flesh-and-blood bodies can stand.

If the church says you are not allowed to steal, and we will ostracize you in our midst if you did, if what a man has does not measure up to what he has, if we found that a man has more money than he should have, if a man is earning a salary of a civil servant or a public servant and he has houses everywhere, we have to hold him to account.

We must listen to the concerns of our people without dismissing them. When people see something wrong, there is something wrong. When our people see corruption, it means there is corruption. When our people see that their resources are being stolen by certain people, it means this is happening, and we should listen.

There's always got to be room for what you might call benign corruption. Nobody blames a man who steals food to feed his starving children, but on the other hand, somebody who picks up a badge and takes an oath to serve and protect; we do expect a certain level of essential honesty.

The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.

In business, as in politics, the public is ever so tolerant of those who slime.

We know that the wages of secrecy are corruption. We know that in secrecy error, undetected, will flourish and subvert.

The one thing I do not want to be called is First Lady. It sounds like a saddle horse. Would you notify the telephone operators and everyone else that I'm to be known simply as Mrs. Kennedy and not as First Lady.

Ethiopia did not have the same problem [of corruption]. African leaders looked at us with envy.

More than anything else, I think prospects, customers and citizens watch what you do more than they listen to what you say.

The last thing it [government] ought to do is to ground its proceedings on the ignorance of the people, - to yield them that which they will hereafter despise the donors for granting them.

Women in stores will pull their children away from me sometimes so they won't catch the crazy Creed virus. Other folks are disappointed that I'm not that guy in person.

Why should we think nudity is such a revolting thing in a land where there is so much violence and corruption and racism and hatred? Nudity seems like a welcome relief from all the bullshit in life.

If opinion hath lighted the lamp of thy name, endeavor to encourage it with thy own oil, lest it go out and stink; the chronical disease of Popularity is shame; if thou be once up, beware; from fame to infamy is a beaten road.

My job is to continue to work very hard, to make sure the American people understand who I am, what I believe in, what I'll fight for. It's why I have been so accessible to the press.

Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity.

Everyone went out and bought Sex, it was sold out in two seconds. And then everybody slagged me off. That, to me is a statement of the hypocrisy of the world that we live in. The fact that everybody is so interested in sex but won't admit it.

A man in public life expects to be sneered at -- it is the fault of his elevated situation, and not of himself.

Society itself is responsible for the degradation.

When the man is at home, his standing in society is well known and quietly taken; but when he is abroad, it is problematical, and is dependent on the success of his manners.

People think that the politician is just part of a system, and whether they're lying or not doesn't matter.

If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you Pope.

For a long time, people assumed I was gay, so when I got married the press were all a bit shocked and made a big deal of it - and ditto when I had children. I felt very much under the microscope with paps outside the house taking pictures of me getting the baby out of the car, it was excruciating. I remember getting her out of the car seat and thinking 'oh God I'm going to drop her and they're going to take a picture'. I was so nervous. Those sorts of things are really hard.

We have to address individual acts of corruption. This is a necessary approach. Go after these individuals.

I have grown used to the fact that public repentance is the most unacceptable option for the modern politician.