"Diplomacy without force is like music without instruments."
— Frederick the Great

"Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth."
— Mark Twain

"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."
— Dr. Seuss

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."
— Elie Wiesel

"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."
— Marilyn Monroe

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."
— William Shakespeare (All's Well That Ends Well)

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."
— Mother Teresa

"We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. "
— Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient)

"There is a whirlwind in southern Morocco, the aajej, against which the fellahin defend themselves with knives. There is the africo, which has at times reached into the city of Rome. The alm, a fall wind out of Yugoslavia. The arifi, also christened aref or rifi, which scorches with numerous tongues. These are permanent winds that live in the present tense.
There are other, less constant winds that change direction, that can knock down horse and rider and realign themselves anticlockwise. The bist roz leaps into Afghanistan for 170 days--burying villages. There is the hot, dry ghibli from Tunis, which rolls and rolls and produces a nervous condition. The haboob--a Sudan dust storm that dresses in bright yellow walls a thousand metres high and is followed by rain. The harmattan, which blows and eventually drowns itself into the Atlantic. Imbat, a sea breeze in North Africa. Some winds that just sigh towards the sky. Night dust storms that come with the cold. The khamsin, a dust in Egypt from March to May, named after the Arabic word for 'fifty,' blooming for fifty days--the ninth plague of Egypt. The datoo out of Gibraltar, which carries fragrance.
There is also the ------, the secret wind of the desert, whose name was erased by a king after his son died within it. And the nafhat--a blast out of Arabia. The mezzar-ifoullousen--a violent and cold southwesterly known to Berbers as 'that which plucks the fowls.' The beshabar, a black and dry northeasterly out of the Caucasus, 'black wind.' The Samiel from Turkey, 'poison and wind,' used often in battle. As well as the other 'poison winds,' the simoom, of North Africa, and the solano, whose dust plucks off rare petals, causing giddiness.
Other, private winds.
Travelling along the ground like a flood. Blasting off paint, throwing down telephone poles, transporting stones and statue heads. The harmattan blows across the Sahara filled with red dust, dust as fire, as flour, entering and coagulating in the locks of rifles. Mariners called this red wind the 'sea of darkness.' Red sand fogs out of the Sahara were deposited as far north as Cornwall and Devon, producing showers of mud so great this was also mistaken for blood. 'Blood rains were widely reported in Portugal and Spain in 1901.'
There are always millions of tons of dust in the air, just as there are millions of cubes of air in the earth and more living flesh in the soil (worms, beetles, underground creatures) than there is grazing and existing on it. Herodotus records the death of various armies engulfed in the simoom who were never seen again. One nation was 'so enraged by this evil wind that they declared war on it and marched out in full battle array, only to be rapidly and completely interred.'"
— Michael Ondaatje

"It's clear to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty bumming blithely along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together. Like two solitary birds flying the great prairies by celestial reckoning, all of these years and lifetimes we have been moving toward one another."
— Robert James Waller (The Bridges of Madison County)

"وطنك هو المكان الذى ارتديت فيه أول سروال طويل فى حياتك، ولعبت أول مباراة كرة قدم، وسمعت أول قصيدة، وكتبت أول خطاب حب، وتلقيت أول علقة من معلمك أو خصومك فى المدرسة.. وطنك هو المكان الذى ذهبت فيه للمسجد لأول مرة وحدك، وخلعت حذاءك متحديًا صديقك أن يقف جوارك لتريا أيكما أطول قامة.. وطنك هو أول مكان تمرّغت على عشبه فى صراع مع صديق لدود من أجل فتاة لا تعرف شيئا عن كليكما"
— أحمد خالد توفيق (ما وراء الطبيعة: 12 - أسطورة البيت)

"أرجو أن أوضح شيئاً .. ما حدث في أمريكا مأساة وقتل لأبرياء .. وما حدث في فلسطين نفس الشيء .. لكن مدنييهم ليسوا أغلى ثمناً من مدنيينا"
— أحمد خالد توفيق

"لا أحد يستطيع ألا يفكر في السياسة اليوم .. إنها تقتحم غرفة نومك ومكتبك .. لذا لا أحاول الكلام في السياسة .. السياسة هي التي تأتي لي"
— أحمد خالد توفيق

"غزو العراق قد تم ورأيت أننا مسيرون إلى أن نتحول إلى كائنات منقرضة بالية .. الهنود الحمر ماتوا وهم يقاتلون لكننا سنموت ونحن نتفرج ونتصل بـ( ستار أكاديمي ) .. وحينما ينتفض الشارع العربي يكن هذا لأجل منع مسلسل الأطفال ( بوكيمون ) .. الحقيقة أن إسرائيل سعيدة الحظ إذ وجدتنا خصومها .. يلذ لي أن اتخيل مصيرها لو كان جيرانها صينيين أو يابانيين !"
— أحمد خالد توفيق

"Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend."
— Albert Camus

"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt."
— Abraham Lincoln

"Women are like teabags; you never know how strong they are until they're put in hot water."
— Eleanor Roosevelt

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
— Mark Twain

"Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good, and kind, and brave, because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort. Remember Cedric Diggory."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by frost."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one."
— C.S. Lewis

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything."
— Malcolm X

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."
— Robert Frost

"My alma mater was books, a good library.... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity."
— Malcolm X

"People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book."
— Malcolm X (The Autobiography of Malcolm X)

"I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream--I see an American nightmare."
— Malcolm X

"
"The media's the most powerful entity on earth.
They have the power to make the innocent guilty
and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power.
Because they control the minds of the masses.""
— Malcolm X

"Our religion-ISLAM- teaches us to be intelligent, Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery"
— Malcolm X

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way."
— Pablo Neruda (100 Love Sonnets/Cien Sonetos De Amor)

"Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

"No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully."
— Kahlil Gibrán (The Prophet)

"(Egypt) is a great place for contrasts: splendid things gleam in the dust."
— Gustave Flaubert (Flaubert in Egypt: A Sensibility on Tour)

"Just for the record, the weather today is calm and sunny, but the air is full of bullshit."
— Chuck Palahniuk (Diary)

"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished."
— Laozi (Tao Te Ching)

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"Hearts united in pain and sorrow
will not be separated by joy and happiness.
Bonds that are woven in sadness
are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure.
Love that is washed by tears
will remain eternally pure and faithful."
— Kahlil Gibrán (Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran)

"If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?"
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of a man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire... Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter."
— Jane Austen (Northanger Abbey)

"The most effective way to destroy a people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history."
— George Orwell

"He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past."
— George Orwell (1984)

"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. "
— George Orwell

"War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength."
— George Orwell (1984)

"Writing a book is a horrible,
exhausting struggle, like a long bout with some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand."
— George Orwell

"Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
— George Orwell

"A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: 1. What am I trying to say? 2. What words will express it? 3. What image or idiom will make it clearer? 4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

Politics and the English Language, 1946"
— George Orwell

"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness."
— George Orwell (1984)

"To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle."
— George Orwell

"Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them."
— George Orwell (1984)

"Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac."
— George Orwell