As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.

The rural areas have been deprived by the cities in the past. Development resources and energy should be directed where the people live.

It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.

Ogbuef Ezedudu,who was the oldest man in the village, was telling two other men when they came to visit him that the punishment for breaking the Peace of Ani had become very mild in their clan. "It has not always been so," he said. "My father told me that he had been told that in the past a man who broke the peace was dragged on the ground through the village until he died. but after a while this custom was stopped because it spoiled the peace which it was meant to preserve.

We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own. The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n'ani ji onwe ya: 'He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.'

The man that brings ant-infested faggots into his hut should not grumble when lizards begin to pay him a visit.

A man to whom you do a favor will not understand if you say nothing, make no noise, just walk away. You may cause more trouble by refusing a bribe than by accepting it.