Arrow of God Quotes

“Have you not heard that when two brothers fight a stranger reaps the harvest?”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“What kind of power was it if everybody knew that it would never be used? Better to say that it was not there, that it was no more than the power in the anus of the proud dog who tried to put out a furnace with his puny fart.... He turned the yam with a stick.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“A man who asks questions does not lose his way; that is what our fathers taught us.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“My father used to say that it is the fear of causing offense that makes men swallow poison.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“The fly that no one to advise it follows the corpse into the grave.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“Wisdom is like a goatskin bag; every man carries his own.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“villages that their leaders came together to save themselves.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“If my enemy speaks the truth I will not say because it is spoken by my enemy I will not listen.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“Africa never spared those who did what they liked instead of what they had to do.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“It is praiseworthy to be brave and fearless, my son, but sometimes it is better to be a coward. We often stand in the compound of a coward to point at the ruins where a brave man used to live. The man who has never submitted to anything will soon submit to the burial mat.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“What a man does not know is greater than he.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“But let the slave who sees another cast into a shallow grave know that he will be buried in the same way when his day comes.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“From this point Clarke speculated briefly on the nature of knowledge. Did knowledge of one’s friends and colleagues impose a handicap on one? Perhaps it did. If so it showed how false was the common assumption that the more facts you could get about others the greater your power over them. Perhaps facts put you at a great disadvantage; perhaps they made you feel sorry and even responsible. Clarke rose to his feet and walked up and down, rather self-consciously. Perhaps this was the real difference between British and French colonial administrations. The French made up their minds about what they wanted to do and did it. The British, on the other hand, never did anything without first sending out a Commission of Inquiry to discover all the facts, which then ham-strung them. He sat down again, glowing with satisfaction.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“─El mundo está cambiando ─le había dicho─. No me gusta, pero soy como el pájaro eneke-nti-oba, que cuando sus amigos le preguntaron por que volaba a todas horas respondió: "Los hombres de hoy han aprendido a disparar sin errar y por eso yo he aprendido a volar sin posarme en las ramas".”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“When was it ever heard that a child was scalded by the piece of yam its own mother put in its palm? What man would send his son with a potsherd to bring fire from a neighbor's hut and then unleash rain on him? Who ever sent his son up the palm to gather nuts and then took an axe and felled the tree?”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“Our people say that if you thank a man for what he has done he will have strength to do more.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“We have a saying that a snake is never as long as the stick to which we liken its length.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“A disease that has never been seen before cannot be cured with everyday herbs.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“But in dealing with a man who thinks you a fool it is good sometimes to remind him that you know what he knows but have chosen to appear foolish for the sake of peace.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“Men of today have learnt to shoot without missing and so I have learnt to fly without perching.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“The inquisitive monkey gets a bullet in the face.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“You may quarrel, but let it not end in fighting.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow Of God

“This was the third nightfall since he began to look for signs of the new moon.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“¿Quién les mostró el camino hasta Abame? No han nacido allí; entonces ¿cómo encontraron el camino? Se lo enseñamos nosotros, y lo seguimos haciendo. Así que no me venga nadie ahora a quejarse de que los blancos han hecho esto o lo otro. El que trae leña infestada de hormigas a su cabaña no debería quejarse cuando se encuentre con la visita de los lagartos.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“My father used to say that it is the fear of causing offence that makes men swallow poison.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“A coward may cover the ground with his words but when the time comes to fight he runs away.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“The boy who persists in asking what happened to his father before he has enough strength to avenge him is asking for his father's fate...”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“A man might pick his way with the utmost care through a crowded market but find that the hem of his cloth had upset and broken another's wares; in such a case the man, not his cloth, was held to repair the damage.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“In our custom a man is not expected to go down on his knees and knock his forehead on the ground to his wife to ask her forgiveness or beg a favor. But, a wise man knows that between him and his wife there may arise the need for him to say to her in secret: "I beg you.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God

“Things are always like that. Our eye sees something; we take a stone and aim at it. But the stone rarely succeeds like the eye in hitting the mark.”
― Chinua Achebe, Arrow of God