Aly Selim > Aly's Quotes

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“وربما أوجب استقصاؤنا النظر عدولاً عن المشهور والمتعارف ، فمن قرع سمعه خلاف ما عهده ، فلا يبادرنا بالإنكار ، فذلك طيش ، فرُبَّ شنعٌ حق ومألوفٌ محمودٌ كاذب ، والحق حقٌ في نفسه ، لا لقول الناس له ، ولنذكر دومًا قولهم: إذا تساوت الأذهان والهمم ، فمتأخرُ كل صنعةٍ خيرٌ من متقدمها”
― ابن النفيس, مخطوطة شرح معاني القانون

“Truth, it seems, is always bashful, easily reduced to silence by the too blatant encroachment of falsehood.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

“I am not educated, nor am I an expert in any particular field but I am sincere, and my sincerity is my credentials”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Modern man can't see God because he doesn't look low enough.”
― Carl Jung

“Who are you then?"
"I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, First Part

“إن الكنائس في المدن الكبيرة مليئة بالفضة والذهب اللذين لا حاجة لله بهما ، في حين يرتجف على ابواب الكنائس عدد لا يحصى من الفقراء ينتظرون بفارغ الصبر هبات نحيلة تُلقى في أيديهم المفتوحة.”
― Maxim Gorky, Mother

“مهما نسبت الكلام وأسندته إلى قائل حسن فيه اعتقادهم قبلوه وإن كان باطلا، وإن أسندته إلى قائل ساء فيه اعتقادهم ردوه وإن كان حقا، فأبدًا يعرفون الحق بالرجال، ولا يعرفون الرجال بالحق، وهو غاية الضلال”
― أبو حامد محمد الغزالي, المنقذ من الضلال والمفصح بالأحوال

“أيها الراكب الميمم أرضي
أقري من بعضي السلام لبعضي
إن جسمي كما علمت بأرض
وفؤادي ومالكيه بأرض
قُدر البين بيننا فافترقنا
وطوى البين عن جفوني غمضي
قد قضى الله بالفراق علينا
فعسى باجتماعنا سوف يقضي”
― عبد الرحمن الداخل

“If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“He wondered often how he would ever recognize the first chill, flush, twinge, ache, belch, sneeze, stain, lethargy, vocal slip, loss of balance or lapse of memory that would signal the inevitable beginning of the inevitable end.”
― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

“It doesn't make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who's dead.”
― joseph heller, Catch-22

“How can you expect a man who's warm to understand one who's cold?”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

“You can boast about anything if it's all you have. Maybe the less you have, the more you are required to boast.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the neverending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden

“It is better to sit in appreciative contemplation of a world in which beauty is eternally supported on a foundation of ugliness: cut out the support, and beauty will sink from sight.”
― John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday