Noha Zayed > Noha's Quotes

“I can't control the wind but I can adjust the sail.”
― Ricky Skaggs

“Possibly a man who hates the land should dwell on shore forever. Alienation and the long voyages at sea will compel him once again to dream of it, torment him with the absurdity of longing for something that he loathes.”
― Yukio Mishima, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

“When the shooting starts would you rather be armed or legal?”
― Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“8 April 1891
The obscenity of nostrils and mouths; the ignominious cupidity of smiles and women encountered in the street; the shifty baseness on every side, as of hyenas and wild beasts ready to bite: tradesmen in their shops and strollers on their pavements. How long must I suffer this? I have suffered it before, as a child, when, descending by chance to the servant's quarters, I overheard in astonishment their vile gossip, tearing up my own kind with their lovely teeth.

This hostility to the entire race, this muted detestation of lynxes in human form, I must have rediscovered it later while at school. I had a repugnance and horror for all base instincts, but am I not myself instinctively violent and lewd, murderous and sensual? Am I any different, in essence, from the members of the riotous and murderous mob of a hundred years ago, who hurled the town sergeants into the Seine and cried, 'String up the aristos!' just as they shout 'Down with the army!' or 'Death to the Jews!”
― Jean Lorrain, Monsieur de Phocas

“If you are going to try, go all the way or don't even start. If you follow it you will be alive with the gods. It is the only good fight there is.”
― Charles Bukowski

“I don't know about other people, but when I wake up in the morning and put my shoes on, I think, Jesus Christ, now what?”
― Charles Bukowski

“The problem was you had to keep choosing between one evil or another, and no matter what you chose, they sliced a little more off you, until there was nothing left. At the age of 25 most people were finished. A whole goddamned nation of assholes driving automobiles, eating, having babies, doing everything in the worst way possible, like voting for the presidential candidate who reminded them most of themselves.”
― Charles Bukowski, Ham on Rye

“I believe that human brilliance manifests itself only in flashes, among rare individuals. For this reason, humanity as a whole is enormously destructive: the creation of something as devastating as Western culture, which is now allowed to spread throughout the world, offers sufficient proof of this fact.”
― Pentti Linkola, Can Life Prevail?

“Since I no longer expect anything from mankind except madness, meanness, and mendacity; egotism, cowardice, and self-delusion, I have stopped being a misanthrope.”
― Irving Layton

“The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, The Journals of Kierkegaard

“They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Often the contempt of vainglory becomes a source of even more vainglory, for it is not being scorned when the contempt is something one is proud of.”
― St. Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

“A martyr is, he who has become the instrument of God, who has lost his will in the will of God, not lost it but found it, for he has found freedom in submission to God. The martyr no longer desires anything for himself, not even the glory of martyrdom.”
― T.S. Elliott

“Those who live by the sea can hardly form a single thought of which the sea would not be part.”
― Hermann Broch

“Here we go mother on the shipless ocean.
Pity us, pity the ocean, here we go.”
― Anne Carson, Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera

“كنت دائماً ما أشعر بالكآبة. أستيقظ في الصبَاحِ عَاجزاً حتى عن الابتسام في المرآة. لم أكن لوحدي، بل كل من يحيا في هذه المدينة كان عاجزاً عن الابتسام، بعضهم نسي كيف تكون الابتسامة، وفي اللحظات النادرة حينما يبتسم لك نادل ما في المطعم، أو أي شخص يسدي لك مَعرُوفاً حتي لو كان يُسَاعدك في ركن سيارتك، تعرف طبقاً لقوانين المدينة أنك يجب أن ترد له هذه الابتسامة بمُقَابل مادي مع أنك تعرف أيضاً أنه سوف يسبك ما أن تعطيه ظهرك. القاهرة كلها كانت وعاء كرَاهية، كانت المادة الخام للكرَاهية والتعاسة.”
― أحمد ناجي, استخدام الحياة

“القاهرة. الحر. الشمس. العبوس. اللزق والتلزيق. الألم. الأعصاب الملتهبة. الصرخة المكتومة للداخل. الشارع الذي لا يسمح لك بالابتسام أو الضحك. نفس الشارع الذي لا يسمح لك بالبكاء أو بالصراخ ألماً. شيء ما في علاقتي بالمدينة قد بدأ في التغير. شيء ربما كان موجودا ولكني لم أنتبه له. أو أنه استيقظ في تمهل منذ بداية العمل في هذا المشروع. ثم قفز في السرير يوم تلك الهزيمة الفَادحة أمام سَائق التاكسي ذي الشفاه الغليظة والشنب الكث.”
― أحمد ناجي, استخدام الحياة

“لا يوجد ما هو أصعب من القرارات في القاهرة، لأن القاهرة غالباً هي من تقرر لك كيف تكون حياتك. كيف تتوزع قصة حبك، كيف تنتهي، متى تأكل، كم ساعة من عمرك ستضيع في زحام الشوارع، نسبة إصابتك بالسرطان، نوعية وتوقيت تعرضك لحادث السيارة، درجة قذارة الطعام الذي ستضطر لتناوله في الشارع. كم كلبا سيجري وراءك ليلاً في حياتك. أنت هنا عبد لهذه المدينة، ولكي تمنحك نفسها يجب أن تبيعها روحك بعقد موثق بالدم.”
― أحمد ناجي, استخدام الحياة

“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”
― Malcolm X

“Muhammad has always been standing higher than the Christianity. He does not consider god as a human being and never makes himself equal to God. Muslims worship nothing except God and Muhammad is his Messenger. There is no any mystery and secret in it.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see -egoism, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, intolerance, anger, lying, cheating, gossiping and slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then you will be read to fight the enemy you can see.”
― Al-Ghazzali

“What has he found who has lost God?
And what has he lost who has found God?”
― Ibn 'Ata' Allah Al-Iskandari

“ما يصيب المسلم من نصب ولا وصب ولا همّ ولا حزن ولا أذى ولا غمّ - حتى الشوكة يشاكها - إلا كفّر الله بها مِن خطاياه
No fatigue, disease, sorrow, sadness, hurt or distress befalls a Muslim - not even the prick he receives from a thorn - except that Allah expiates some of his sins because of it. (Sahih al-Bukhari, Book 70, #545)”
― Anonymous

“The happiness of the drop is to die in the river.”
― Imam Al-Ghazali

“Islam appears to me like a perfect work of architecture. All its parts are harmoniously conceived to complement and support each other; nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking; and the result is a structure of absolute balance and solid composure.”
― Muhammad Asad

“Regardless of what I think about Islam or Wicca or any other religion, the fact is that it's a group of people. Every faith has its ceremonies. And since it's made up of people, every faith also has its assholes.”
― Jim Butcher, White Night

“The world is 3 days: As for yesterday, it has vanished along with all that was in it. As for tomorrow, you may never see it. As for today, it is yours, so work on it.”
― Hasan Al-Basri

“I am a Muslim, because it's a religion that teaches you an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It teaches you to respect everybody, and treat everybody right. But it also teaches you if someone steps on your toe, chop off their foot. And I carry my religious axe with me all the time.”
― Malcolm X

“There is nothing in our book, the Qur'an, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”
― Malcolm X

“المؤمن لا تتم له لذه بمعصيه أبداً بل لا يُباشـرها إلا و الحزن يخالط قلبه و متى خلا قلبه من هذا الحزن فليبكي على موت قلبه”
― ابن قيم الجوزية