Riza Illahi > Riza's Quotes

“I think it would be foolish to believe that there are no problems - life is made of problems. They occur every day to just about everyone around the world and I think that it is important that we should simply accept that that is life and we must live it fully and courageously”
― Aga Khan

“Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.”
― Idries Shah, Reflections

“What a kid I got, I told him about the birds and the bees and he told me about the butcher and my wife.”
― Rodney Dangerfield

“When I was your age, television was called books.”
― William Goldman, The Princess Bride

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly

“For too long some of our schools have taught too many subjects as subsets of dogmatic commitments...Too often, education made our students less flexible- confident to the point of arrogance that they now had all the answers- rather than more flexible- humble in their lifelong openness to new questions and new responses. An important goal of quality education is to equip each generation to participate effectively in what has been called 'the great conversation' of our times. This means, on one hand, being unafraid of controversy. But, on the other hand, it also means being sensitive to the values and outlooks of others.”
― Aga Khan, Where Hope Takes Root: Democracy and Pluralism in an Interdependent World

“For the developing world, the past half-century has been a time of recurring hope and frequent disappointment. Great waves of change have washed over the landscape, from the crumbling of colonial hegemonies in mid-century to the recent collapse of Communist empires. But too often, what rushed in to replace the old order were empty hopes-not only in the false allure of state socialism, non-alignment and single-party rule, but also the false glories of romantic nationalism and narrow tribalism, and the false dawn of runaway individualism.”
― Aga Khan

“If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough.”
― Elif Şafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“Whatever happens in your life, no matter how troubling things might seem, do not enter the neighborhood of despair. Even when all doors remain closed, God will open up a new path only for you. Be thankful!”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I've read a book, I don't feel like I've finished anything. So I start a new one.”
― Elif Shafak, The Bastard of Istanbul

“Love cannot be explained, yet it explains all.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“Hell is in the here and now. So is heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“there are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Assassination creates an instant hero of its target. Any past sins are not just forgiven but utterly forgotten.”
― Lesley Hazleton, After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam

“People may hate you for being different and not living by society's standards but deep down, they wish they had the courage to do the same.”
― Kevin Hart

“I don’t know where I am going, but I am on my way.”
― Voltaire

“Life consists of two days, one for you one against you. So when it's for you don't be proud or reckless, and when it's against you be patient, for both days are test for you.”
― Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S

“Nothing hurts a good soul and a kind heart more than to live amongst people who cannot understand it.”
― Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S

“The best deed of a great man is to forgive and forget.”
― Ali Ibn Abi Talib A.S

“Do not let your difficulties fill you with anxiety, after all it is only in the darkest nights that stars shine more brightly.”
― Ali Ibn Abi Talib AS

“I am from there. I am from here.
I am not there and I am not here.
I have two names, which meet and part,
and I have two languages.
I forget which of them I dream in.”
― Mahmoud Darwish

“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”
― V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River

“Happiness is not only a hope, but also in some strange manner a memory ... we are all kings in exile.”
― G.K. Chesterton, The Thing: Why I am a Catholic

“We have all seen examples of God's most wonderful creature, the person, who is inspired to go beyond the mechanical requirements of a task. Such men and women, paid or unpaid, express the spirit of the volunteer — literally the will to make a product better, a school the very best, a clinic more compassionate and effective. Their spirit, generating new ideas, resisting discouragement, and demanding results, animates the heart of every effective society."

— His Highness the Aga Khan, Enabling Environment Conference, Nairobi, October 20, 1986.”
― The Aga Khan IV

“We are often told these days that tension and violence in much of the world grows out of some fundamental clash of civilizations – especially a clash between the Islamic world and the West. I disagree with that assessment. In my view, it is a clash of ignorance's which is to blame

- His Highness the Aga Khan at the Foundation Stone-Laying Ceremony of The Aga Khan Academy (Hyderabad, India) 22 September 2006”
― The Aga Khan IV

“As you build your lives, for yourselves and others, you will come to rest upon certain principles. Central to my life has been a verse in the Holy Quran which addresses itself to the whole of humanity. It says: 'Oh Mankind, fear your Lord, who created you of a single soul, and from it created its mate, and from the pair of them scattered abroad many men and women'. I know of no more beautiful expression about the unity of our human race — born indeed from a single soul.”
― Aga Khan

“.....the discourse of the Qur’an-e-Sharif, rich in parable and allegory, metaphor and symbol, has been an inexhaustible well-spring of inspiration, lending itself to a wide spectrum of interpretations. This freedom of interpretation is a generosity which the Qur'an confers upon all believers, uniting them in the conviction that All-Merciful Allah will forgive them if they err in their sincere attempts to understand His word. Happily, as a result, the Holy Book continues to guide and illuminate the thought and conduct of Muslims belonging to different communities of interpretation and spiritual affiliation, from century to century, in diverse cultural environments. The Noble Qur’an extends its principle of pluralism also to adherents of other faiths. It affirms that each has a direction and path to which they turn so that all should strive for good works, in the belief that, wheresoever they may be, Allah will bring them together.

- His Highness the Aga Khan, The Ismaili Center London, October 19, 2003
‘Word of God, Art of Man: The Qur’an and its Creative Expressions’

An International Colloquium organised by Institute of Ismaili Studies”
― The Aga Khan IV

“We need in the “Ummah” to move away from the normative attitudes towards the acceptance of pluralism of the “Ummah”, and that pluralism starts from the time of the Prophet himself and “Hadith” (Sayings of the Prophet Mohammad) as well as the Prophet’s historical footprints show that in the life time of the Prophet himself he knew that there would be pluralism in the interpretation of the faith"

His Highness The Aga Khan Geneva, Switzerland 2006”
― The Aga Khan IV

“Nothing is gained by imposing one interpretation upon people disposed to another. Indeed the effect of such coercion is a denial of the principles of the faith…Shia and Sunni can co-exist and co-operate, true to their own interpretations of Islam but confederates in faith…Human genius is found in its variety, which is a work of Allah."

— His Highness the Aga Khan, Khorog, Badakhshan, May 24, 1995.”
― The Aga Khan IV