Chinua Achebe Quotes

You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree - the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.

Chinua Achebe

• World
• Great
• Men
• May
• Tree
• Greatness
• Plant
• Forest

• Previous
• Next

Quotes to Explore

• At least I want to be making films that are somehow born out of me that are stories I want to tell. The challenge is figuring out how to do it where you can make them personal, yet still deliver to an audience a film experience that is satisfying and emotional, and that's what I'm trying to do.

  

  Gavin O'Connor
  • Trying
  • Experience
  • Challenge

• The public's nerves are raw and edgy. You have to be discreet and understanding about the films you are showing.

  

  Jack Valenti
  • You
  • Understanding
  • Edgy

• I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written.

  

  Irwin Shaw
  • Critics
  • Reach
  • Regardless

• What I loathe is the multi-national conglomerates who must take responsibility for the degradation and pollution of so much of our landscape with their factory farming and greed.

  

  Fay Godwin
  • Responsibility
  • Greed

• I kind of crave loneliness.

  

  Sam Heughan
  • Kind
  • Loneliness
  • Crave

• One rare and exceptional deed is worth far more than a thousand commonplace ones.

  

  Saint Ignatius
  • More
  • Far
  • Rare

• I didn't get into rap to be no lyrical genius. I got into rap to feed my family and help the people in need around me, that's it. A lot of people say, 'Man, Waka Flocka ain't go no lyrics,' so I was like, 'Yeah, you right!'

  

  Waka Flocka Flame
  • People
  • Family
  • Help

• Some people seem to sort of have a gut for hiring. I literally had a gut that was exactly the opposite. So whenever I thought someone would be great, it was sort of the opposite.

  

  Wendy Kopp
  • People
  • Great
  • Thought

• Here, class attendance is expected and students are required to take notes, which they are tested on. What is missing, it seems to me, is the use of knowledge, the practical training.

  

  Harrison Salisbury
  • Knowledge
  • Me
  • Training

• A filial son to his father can be a traitorous subject to his ruler.

  

  Han Fei
  • Father
  • Son
  • Ruler

• If GE's strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.

  

  Jack Welch
  • Future
  • Couple
  • Loss

• At times, training at home is a distraction, so training in Big Bear was a really good change.

  

  Canelo Alvarez
  • Good
  • Home
  • Change

• Humour is like violence. They both come to you unexpectedly, and the more unpredictable they both are, the better it gets.

  

  Takeshi Kitano
  • You
  • Violence
  • Better

• In studio films, everything has to be boxed in, everybody needs to know beforehand - this is comedy, this is sci-fi, this is drama - and what's the point of independent film if you don't get to experiment?

  

  Famke Janssen
  • Know
  • Comedy
  • Drama

• Marriage is a social construct, but I still believe in it.

  

  Talulah Riley
  • Believe
  • Marriage
  • Social

• Sometimes when you play a golf course for the first time, you just got to be committed to your targets.

  

  Camilo Villegas
  • Time
  • Sometimes
  • Golf

• I love who I am and I love my life, but if I could be someone else, I'd be Beyonce in two seconds.

  

  Dakota Fanning
  • Life
  • Love
  • Beyonce

• It's so great to see a woman dressed in jeans and a lace-up boot with an extraordinary jacket. It's a moment where you do want to mix high and low, and it's not so much about a head-to-toe designer look.

  

  Narciso Rodriguez
  • Up
  • Great
  • High

• The tadpole poet will never grow into anything bigger than a frog; not though in that stage of development he should puff and blow himself till he bursts with windy adulation at the heels of the laureled ox.

  

  Algernon Charles Swinburne
  • Blow

• When I got married in Bucharest, there were 10,000 people on the street. People didn't go to work that day. It was emotional to see how people care about you. I didn't expect that.

  

  Nadia Comaneci
  • People
  • Work
  • Day

• Until the administration can articulate a coherent and convincing policy for closing Guantanamo, it should remain open.

  

  Jason Chaffetz

• Sometimes I can receive the world and regurgitate my version of events easily and sometimes it's hard.

  

  Andrea Riseborough
  • World

• When men are able to influence so many others through their life and their example, they do not die.

  

  Aleida Guevara
  • Life
  • Men
  • Die

• You cannot plant greatness as you plant yams or maize. Who ever planted an iroko tree - the greatest tree in the forest? You may collect all the iroko seeds in the world, open the soil and put them there. It will be in vain. The great tree chooses where to grow and we find it there, so it is with the greatness in men.

  

  Chinua Achebe
  • World
  • Great
  • Men