Chinua Achebe Quotes

If you go through life being casual, you will end up a casualty

I used to just sign papers and not pay no attention to what I'm signing.

I lose things all the time. I once left my mother's ashes at a bus stop!

I'm terribly forgetful. I've lost laptops, cell-phones.

During the times of peace and prosperity a leader becomes careless and unmindful of the future

I think you cannot be too complacent. I think that's dangerous, and you cannot take anything for granted.

You never want to be too comfortable because that's when you start to get complacent and start doing those little stupid things and getting too relaxed.

Making a judgment, taking a stand and then acting against an injustice or acting to support excellence is the stuff of the everyman hero. If you are an aspiring artist and you wish to avoid “judgments,” you'll find that you have nothing to say.

Mankind censure injustice fearing that they may be the victims of it, and not because they shrink from committing it.

Is not he imprudent, who, seeing the tide making haste towards him apace, will sleep till the sea overwhelms him?

As the mind of each man is conscious of good or evil, so does he conceive within his breast hope or fear, according to his actions.

Prudence reproaches; conscience accuses.

Without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business.

Because he KNEW he was doing wrong. He felt the PAIN of his actions'-- 'But he did not amen them,' shows the Sky. 'The rest are worth as much as their pack animals,' I show, 'but worst is the one who knows better and does NOTHING.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

People get careless when they're feeling safe.

The issues of the choice between right and wrong has to be an ongoing concern for everybody, at every age. There is no magical point in a human life when anyone is or becomes immune to the second-by-second choice to do right instead of wrong.

When one does another person an injustice, in some mysterious way it does one good to discover (or to persuade oneself) that the injured party has also behaved badly or unfairly in some little matter or other; it is always a relief to the conscience if one can apportion some measure of guilt to the person one has betrayed.

...Next time you're faced with a choice, do the right thing. It hurts everyone less in the long run.

Familiarity breeds contempt only when it breeds inattention.

Don't take the casual approach to life. Casualness leads to casualties.

I spend a lot of time trying to not do anything bad to anyone, but you can't live your life and not hurt people.

The likelihood that your acts of resistance cannot stop the injustice does not exempt you from acting in what you sincerely and reflectively hold to be the best interests of your community.

Genius does not excuse evil.

Every generation is confronted anew with the task not to look the other way when injustice occurs. ... Everyone is responsible for what he does and co-responsible for what he lets happen.