Your life goes in the direction of your thoughts but you are what you think. I thought those two sayings were the same. It matters not if you justify or excuse the thought you allow to dwell in your heart, you become it. Physically. A man is good because he thinks good thoughts, peaceful because he … Read more
Readers are leaders. Readers are not leaders if they fail to communicate their insights to the world. This they can do through writing and speaking. The pages preserve and propagate what is written but the masses find it easier to heed the audible voice than the pen. Why? Speaking has the power of immediacy, the … Read more
I regard Paul Graham very highly. His simplicity comes through without any trumpeting or marketing whizz-puff so I take what he writes seriously. His talk How to Make Pittsburgh a Startup Hub is consistently free of fluff. His answer to that query? Bring the young people in. Lots of them. These are the guys with energy … Read more
“The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.” – Tara Ploughman
Appreciate the moments. Aspire to experiences. Share happiness, your joy, your life with your family, and with anyone who’s nearby. We can rue moments of anger, of neglect, of nonchalance or lethargy, but we can cherish the times we did good, that we felt good because we decided to be good. Life is short. Energy … Read more
Yesterday, I stopped at a roadside bookstand. It’s one of those at Ikeja with a display stand by the road, the main outlet storing books hidden away among tailors, boutiques, and household utensil merchants in some shopping plaza. I had bought books from the elderly owner in the past, but his son was the only … Read more
What is more beautiful than a room filled with books? There are probably very many things like love, like catching a baby staring or smiling at you. But I love books, and that joy is complete when I find myself in a room filled with them, a garden of lights and heady smells, of sparkling … Read more
I have always been a rebel – against the course of content-cramming, and soulless educating in Nigeria. And I know what Mark Twain meant when he cautioned not to “allow [your] schooling to interfere with your education” – although I have suffered for it. Our academic systems gasp for relevance but they at least subsist, … Read more
“The African should go beyond the veneer of knowledge. Ability to quote Shakespeare or Byron or Chaucer does not indicate original scholarship. The capacity to know what the periphrastic conjunction is, or to solve the Pythagorean problem, or understand the principle of heat, light and sound, or to translate Aramaic, or to know the important dates of British history, does not indicate true academic scholarship. These are the superficialities of a decadent educational system. These do not make for a dynamic social order. They are by-products of the imitation complex which Gabriel Tarde expounds excellently in one of his books.
Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of true scholar. Initiative, emulation and the urge to be intellectually honest are the earmarks of research and academic freedom. Heirs and heiresses of the New Africa must now consecrate themselves for scholarly research into all aspects of world society in general and Africa in particular.”
– Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Excerpt from a speech delivered at the Methodist Boys’ High School, Lagos, in November, 1934, on his return from the United States en-route to Onitsha, his home town).
Postscript: How far have we come, what has changed in 82 years? When, and how can we change?
Find the rest of the speech here, if you will.
Little David killed Goliath Hallelu-hallelujah Little David killed Goliath Hallelujah Little David was a shepherd boy He killed Goliath and shouted for joy, ‘Hey!’ Remember the children’s song? In David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, Malcolm Gladwell begins with the story of David and Goliath recorded in 1 Samuel 17 in the … Read more