Tarik > Tarik's Quotes

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.”
― Alice Walker

“You will make all kinds of mistakes; but as long as you are generous and true and also fierce you cannot hurt the world or even seriously distress her. She was meant to be wooed and won by youth.”
― Winston S. Churchill, My Early Life, 1874-1904

“My education was interrupted only by my schooling.”
― Winston Churchill, My Early Life, 1874-1904

“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times to develop psychic muscles. -- Muad'Dib”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Umman Kudu: scissors-line of jaw muscles, chin like a boot toe - a man to be trusted because the captain's vices were known.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is composed of good people who have something important to say.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

“If you are in passionate love and want to celebrate your passion, read poetry. If your ardor has calmed and you want to understand your evolving relationship, read psychology. But if you have just ended a relationship and would like to believe you are better off without love, read philosophy.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

“Anyone who values truth should stop worshipping reason.”
― Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.”
― Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.”
― Frank Herbert

“I've found that there is always some beauty left -- in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“If I got rid of my demons, I’d lose my angels.”
― Tennessee Williams, Conversations With Tennessee Williams

“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
― Isaac Asimov

“financially shipping is a business of feast and famine”
― Martin Stopford

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.”
― Anais Nin

“No one speaks for God - not even the prophets (who speak about God)”
― Reza Aslan

“The only way to survive in a community where movement was the norm and material accumulation impractical was to maintain a strong sense on tribal solidarity by evenly sharing all available resources.”
― Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

“Muhammad was not yet establishing a new religion; he was calling for sweeping social reforms. He was not yet preaching monotheism; he was demanding economic justice.”
― Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

“Certainly the shahadah contained an important theological innovation, but that innovation was not monotheism. With this simple profession of faith, Muhammad was declaring to Mecca that the God of the heavens and the earth required no intermediate whatsoever, but could be accessed by anyone.”
― Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

“All these schools of though gradually transformed into legal institutions, the diversity of ideas and freedom of opinion that characterized their early development gave way to rigid formalism, strict adherence to precedent, and an almost complete stultification of independent though”
― Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

“[...] there can be no a priori moral framework in a modern democracy [...]”
― Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

“It is pluralism, not secularism, that defines democracy. A democratic state can be established upon any normative moral framework as long as pluralism remains the source of its legitimacy. England continues to maintain a national church whose religious head is also the country’s sovereign and whose bishops serve in the upper house of Parliament. India was, until recently, governed by partisans of an élitist theology of Hindu Awakening (Hindutva) bent on applying an implausible but enormously successful vision of “true Hinduism” to the state. And yet, like the United States, these countries are considered democracies, not because they are secular but because they are, at least in theory, dedicated to pluralism.”
― Reza Aslan, No God But God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

“[...] pluralism implies religious tolerance, not unchecked religious freedom.”
― Reza Aslan, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam

“Like most people born into a religious tradition, my faith was as familiar to me as my skin, and just as disregardable.”
― Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

“Judea is, for all intents and purposes, a temple-state.”
― Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

“The very term “theocracy” was coined specifically to describe Jerusalem.”
― Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth

“Those who did know Jesus - those who followed him into Jerusalem as its king and helped him cleanse the Temple in God's name, who were there when he was arrested and who watched him die a lonely death - played a surprisingly small role in defining the movement Jesus left behing.”
― Reza Aslan, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth