Imran

“Death by love is fairer by far than death by illness", said Amenhotep III.”
― Naguib Mahfouz

“I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centered, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for a wound that would never heal.

College transported me to a new town, where I tried, one more time, to reinvent myself. Becoming someone new, I could correct the errors of my past. At first I was optimistic: I could pull it off. But in the end, no matter where I went, I could never change. Over and over I made the same mistake, hurt other people, and hurt myself in the bargain.

Just after I turned twenty, this thought hit me: Maybe I've lost the chance to ever be a decent human being. The mistakes I'd committed—maybe they were part of my very makeup, an inescapable part of my being. I'd hit rock bottom, and I knew it.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence."
"Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation,
and merciless to fallacy in logic.”
― Thomas Huxley - Evolution and Ethics

“Going against the customs of the Court and high society that consider it normal to make the lower classes wait indefinitely, Hazrat Mahal has never been able to accept this disregard for others, this manner of monopolising their time....this tendency to make them waste their lives, just out of indifference. She knows very well that for those who have nothing, offering their time is proof of their devotion.”
― Kenizé Mourad, In the City of Gold and Silver: The Story of Begum Hazrat Mahal