Mai > Mai's Quotes

“من لا يستح من ملاقاة الله مذنباً,
سيذنب بحقك دون شعور بالذنب.”
― احلام مستغانمي

“الحياء نوع من انواع الاناقة المفقودة . شئ من البهاء الغامض الذى ما عاد يُرى على وجوة الاناث .”
― أحلام مستغانمي, الأسود يليق بك

“ما هو أسوأ ما قد يحدث لك؟
أن تشعر أنك لست كافيًا.
لست كافيًا في أول الصباح، وآخر الليل. لست كافيًا في الحب. لست كافيًا في العمل. لست كافيًا في البيت. لست كافيًا لأصدقائك. لست كافيًا لأحلامك. لست كافيًا لأحد. ولست كافيًا للحياة.”
― أسما حسين

“It’s time to care; it’s time to take responsibility; it’s time to lead; it’s time for a change; it’s time to be true to our greatest self; it’s time to stop blaming others.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“Having a Coke with You

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse

it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it”
― Frank O'Hara

“Today was good. Today was fun. Tomorrow is another one.”
― Dr. Seuss

“Only you can control your future.”
― Dr. Seuss

“God knows better than we do what we need.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“The earth is a great piece of stupidity.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

“Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst, and unsurprised by anything in between.”
― Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“ألا يقول الله
{ وَنَحْنُ أَقْرَبُ إِلَيْهِ مِنْ حَبْلِ الْوَرِيدِ }
فالله لا يقبع بعيداً في السموات العالية ، بل يقبع في داخل كل منا
لذلك فهو لا يتخلى عنا ، فكيف له أن يتخلى عن نفسه؟”
― إليف شافاق, The Forty Rules of Love

“إن الطريق إلي الحقيقة يمر من القلب، لا من الرأس فأجعل قلبك لا عقلك دليلك الرئيسي ، وجه .. تحد ,, وتغلب في نهاية المطاف علي ((النفس)) بقلبك إن معرفتك بنفسك ستقودك إلي معرفة الله

The Path to the Truth is a labor of the heart, not of the head. Make your heart your primary guide! Not your mind. Meet, challenge, and ultimately prevail over your nafs with your heart. Knowing your ego will lead you to the knowledge of God.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

“Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

“ كُتب يوماً أننا نقضي نصف العمر و نحن ننتظر لقاء من سنحبهم و النصف الآخر في وداع الذين أحببناهم”
― فيكتور هوغو

“أحيانـا أتعجب ما إذا كان لي مستقبل هنا. هذا البلد مثل الرجل الذي يمشي على سطح الماء. أو الدرويش الذي يدور حول نفسه. لكم من الوقت يستطيعان الاستمرار؟”
― Samia Serageldin, بيت العائلة

“هاهن تلميذات مسلمات يقمن بعمل خيري إسلامي تحت إشراف إدارة مدرسة كاثوليكية.
لكن مصر دائما كانت بلد المتناقضات.”
― Samia Serageldin, بيت العائلة

“أنا مستعد للتخلي عن كل مشاهد العالم مقابل مشهد طفولتي”
― إميل سيوران, History and Utopia

“I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.”
― Martha Gellhorn, Selected Letters

“I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language."

I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.

Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end.

And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”
― Audre Lorde