# Quote — Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

> If the clan did not exact punishment for an offense against the great goddess, her wrath was loosed on all the land and not just on the offender. As the elders said, if one finger brought oil it soiled all the others.

- Author: [Chinua Achebe](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe.md)
- Book: [Things Fall Apart](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe/things-fall-apart.md)
- Page: 118
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Chinua_Achebe#Things_Fall_Apart_(1958)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe/things-fall-apart/if-the-clan

## More from this book

> As a man danced so the drums were beaten for him.

p. 170 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe/things-fall-apart/as-a-man.md)

> The Ibo people have a proverb that when a man says 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.

p. 29 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe/things-fall-apart/the-ibo-people.md)

> "Let us give them a portion of the Evil Forest. They boast about victory over death. Let us give them a real battlefield in which to show their victory." [...] They offered them as much of the Evil Forest as they cared to take. And to their great amazement the missionaries thanked them and burst into song.

p. 139 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/chinua-achebe/things-fall-apart/let-us-give.md)