1. The White man is very clever
“The white man is very clever. He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers, and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.”
2. While age is respected, achievement would be revered.
"Age was respected among his people, but achievement was revered. As the elders said, if a child washed his hands he could eat with kings."
3. Suicide is an abomination
“It is an abomination for a man to take his own life. It is an offense against the Earth, and a man who commits it will not be buried by his clansmen. His body is evil, and only strangers may touch it…”
4. Don't make trouble for others
"I have learned that a man who makes trouble for others makes trouble for himself.”
5. You can tell a ripe corn by its look.
“As our fathers said, you can tell a ripe corn by its look."
6. Unity and love for others is good for a society to grow
“A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.”
7. A man must be able to control his family
“No matter how prosperous a man was, if he was unable to rule his women and his children (and especially his women) he was not really a man.”
8. Success is not gained through luck but by hardwork.
"If ever a man deserved his success, that man was Okonkwo. At an early age he had achieved fame as the greatest wrestler in all the land. That was not luck. At the most one could say that his chi or personal god was good. But the Ibo people have a proverb that when a man say yes his chi says yes also. Okonkwo said yes very strongly; so his chi agreed. And not only his chi but his clan too, because it judged a man by the work of his hands.”
9. Do not ridicule other people's culture.
“The world has no end, and what is good among one people is an abomination with others.”
10. And if you don't like Okonkwo, Achebe tells you:
“If you don't like my story,write your own”
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