# Quote — Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

> In the many years in which he had toiled to bring civilization to different parts of Africa he had learned a number of things. One of them was that a District Commissioner must never attend to such undignified details as cutting a hanged man from the tree. Such attention would give the natives a poor opinion of him. In the book which he planned to write he would stress that point. [...] One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate.

- 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: 191
- 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/in-the-many

## 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)