Oumaima Fathi

“The human mind has a primitive ego defense mechanism that negates all realities that produce too much stress for the brain to handle. It’s called Denial.”
― Dan Brown, Inferno

“To be alive is to move around, to search for better places, to scavenge the planet looking for more hospitable islands.”
― Fatima Mernissi

“La devise d'Averroès, au XIIe siècle, sera celle-ci: on ne peut seul disposer de toute la vérité. C'est la suite des générations et la continuité avérée entre différentes cultures qui en donnent une image: {C'est un devoir pour nous, au cas où nous trouverions chez nos prédécesseurs parmi les peuples d'autrefois, une théorie réfléchie de l'univers, conforme aux conditions qu'exige la démonstration, d'examiner ce qu'ils ont affirmé dans leurs livres.}”
― Ali Benmakhlouf, Pourquoi lire les philosophes arabes

“Happiness, she would explain, was when a person felt good, light, creative, content, loving and loved, and free. An unhappy person felt as if there were barriers crushing her desires and the talents she had inside. A happy woman was one who could exercise all kinds of rights, from the right to move to the right to create, compete, and challenge, and at the same time could be loved for doing so. Part of happiness was to be loved by a man who enjoyed your strength and was proud of your talents. Happiness was also about the right to privacy, the right to retreat from the company of others and plunge into contemplative solitude. Or sit by yourself doing nothing for a whole day, and not give excuses or feel guilty about it either. Happiness was to be with loved ones, and yet still feel that you existed as a separate being, that ou were not just there to make them happy. Happiness was when there was a balance between what you gave and what you took.”
― Fatima Mernissi, Dreams Of Trespass: Tales Of A Harem Girlhood