Don't take shadows too seriously. Reality is your only safety. Continue to reject illusion.
Let's say there are prospects for a new Nigeria, but I don't think we have a new Nigeria yet.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the potential for a better future but acknowledges the current reality is still lacking.
Wole Soyinka expresses a sense of hope regarding the future of Nigeria, suggesting that there are opportunities and possibilities for transformation. However, he candidly admits that the changes necessary for a truly 'new Nigeria' have not yet materialized, emphasizing a gap between aspiration and reality. This highlights the importance of recognizing both the prospects for improvement and the need for continued efforts towards achieving meaningful change.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about social change, one could reference this quote to highlight the challenges ahead.
More from Wole Soyinka
All quotes βTrading and religion have always been aligned together in the history of the world, and especially on the African continent.
A war, with its attendant human suffering, must, when that evil is unavoidable, be made to fragment more than buildings: It must shatter the foundations of thought and re-create. Only in this way does every individual share in the cataclysm and understand the purpose of sacrifice.
Rwanda, which is one of the younger independent states in Africa, must be regarded as a model of how great human trauma can be transformed to commence true reconstruction of people. Human trauma can lead to stunted growth and mass withdrawal.
I have a kind of magnetic attraction to situations of violence.
Art is solace; art is vision, and when I pick up a literary work, I am a consumer of literature for its own sake.
Similar quotes
From this vision of the role of the United Nations in the next century flow three key priorities for the future: eradicating poverty, preventing conflict and promoting democracy.
Who would have thought that the girl who was forced to go to the hospital because she's so skinny would one day be called too fat?
Who do you call a civilian in a guerilla war? I mean, it might be a farmer by day or a merchant, a housewife, and by night the housewife may be helping to make landmines and booby traps and who knows.
No matter what mistakes we might have made yesterday, today is the day we can retrieve our innocence.
It's very hard to stop doing things you're used to doing. You almost have to dismantle yourself and scatter it all around and then put a blindfold on and put it back together so that you avoid old habits.
We can never really be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: we undergo a test, we have to prove ourselves. It needs subordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling.