Nada Badra > Nada's Quotes

“If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

“A First Sign of the Beginning of Understanding is the Wish to Die.”
― Franz Kafka

“Clichés so often befall vain people.”
― Ann Beattie, Walks With Men

“It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you, because you think that your feelings were wrong and it makes you feel so small because it's so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn't coma back. You're left so alone that you can't explain. Damn, there's nothing like that, is there? I've been there and you have too. You're nodding your head.”
― Henry Rollins, The Portable Henry Rollins

“I'll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does.”
― Henry Rollins, The Portable Henry Rollins

“Somewhere someone is thinking of you. Someone is calling you an angel. This person is using celestial colors to paint your image. Someone is making you into a vision so beautiful that it can only live in the mind. Someone is thinking of the way your breath escapes your lips when you are touched. How your eyes close and your jaw tightens with concentration as you give pleasure a home. These thoughts are saving a life somewhere right now. In some airless apartment on a dark, urine stained, whore lined street, someone is calling out to you silently and you are answering without even being there. So crystalline. So pure. Such life saving power when you smile. You will never know how you have cauterized my wounds. So sad that we will never touch. How it hurts me to know that I will never be able to give you everything I have”
― Henry Rollins

“I definitely learned a lesson this time. I know that I can be broken. I am not as tough as I thought. I see it now. At this point, it's the only thing good that came out of all of this. I know myself better now and know what I have to do.”
― Henry Rollins, The Portable Henry Rollins

“You don't make me feel like you used to.
That's why I'm leaving
That's why people leave each other
They come to their senses and get selfish again.”
― Henry Rollins, See a Grown Man Cry, Now Watch Him Die

“The moon will never lie to anyone. Be like the moon. No one hates the moon or wants to kill it. The moon does not take antidepressants and never gets sent to prison. The moon never shot a guy in the face and ran away. The moon has been around a long time and has never tried to rip anyone off. The moon does not care who you want to touch or what color you are. The moon treats everyone the same. The moon never tries to get in on the guest list or use your name to impress others. Be like the moon. When others insult or belittle in an attempt to elevate themselves, the moon sits passively and watches, never lowering itself to anything that weak. The moon is beautiful and bright. It needs no makeup to look beautiful. The moon never shoves clouds out of its way so it can be seen. The moon needs not fame or money to be powerful. The moon never asks you to go to war to defend it. Be like the moon.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“الأصل في الرمز هو أن يجئ لاحقاً لما يرمز له، إذ تعرض لنا حالة أو فكرة، نريد تمييزها مما قد يختلط بها من أشباهها أو أضدادها، فنبحث لها عن رمز يميزها، و الأغلب أن تكون الحالة المرموز لها مجردة، و أن يكون الرمز المميز لها شيئاً محسوساً يجسد خصائصها و معناها......
و إذن فنقطة البدء الطبيعية في عملية الرمز هي اختلاجة النفس بحالة يراد التعبير عنها، ثم يتجه طريق السير من باطن إلى ظاهر، من حالة وجدانية داخلية إلى شئ محس في دنيا الأشياء الخارجية.. لكن هذا الترتيب الطبيعي -فيما نرى - قد انعكس أحياناً عند ابن عربي في ديوانه "ترجمان الأشواق" لأنه بمثابة من وجد نفسه أمام طائفة من الرموز المجسدة، و أراد أن يلتمس لها من الحياة الشعورية الداخلية ما يصلح أن يكون مرموزات لها. ـ

(قيم من التراث)”
― زكي نجيب محمود

“I’m tired, can’t think of anything and want only to lay my face in your lap, feel your hand on my head and remain like that through all eternity.”
― Franz Kafka, Letters to Milena

“Make a ritual ablution before each prayer, beginning every action with "In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful." First wash your hands, intending to pull them away from the affairs of this world. Then wash your mouth, remember and reciting God's name, purifying it in order to utter His Name. Wash your nose wishing to inhale the perfumes of the Divine. Wash your face feeling shame, and intending to wipe from it arrogance and hypocrisy. Wash your forearms trusting God to make you do what is good. Wet the top of your head feeling humility and wash your ears (in preparation) to hear the address of your Lord. Wash from your feet the dirt of the world so that you don't stain the sands of Paradise. Then thank and praise the Lord, and send prayers of peace and blessing upon our Master, who brought the canons of Islam and taught them to us.

After you leave the place of your ablution without turning your back to it, perform two cycles of prayer out of hope and thankfulness for His making you clean.

Next, stand in the place where you are going to make your prayers as if between the two hands of your Lord. Imagine, without forms and lines, that you are facing the Ka'bah, and that there is no one else on the face of this earth but you. Bring yourself to express your servanthood physically. Choose the verses you are going to recite, understanding their meanings within you. With the verses that start with "Say..." feel that you are talking to your Lord as He wishes you to do: let every word contain praise. Allow time between the sentences, contemplating what our Master, the Messenger of God, gave us, trying to keep it in your heart. Believing that your destiny is written on your forehead, place it humbly on the floor in prostration. When you finish and give salutations to your right and to your left, keep your eyes on yourself and your connection with your Lord, for you are saluting the One under whose power you are and who is within you...”
― Ibn Arabi

“من تعب من الفكر وقف حيث تعب، فمنهم من وقف في التعطيل، ومنهم من وقف في القول بالعلل، ومنهم من وقف في التشبيه، ومنهم من وقف في الحيرة فقال لا أدري، ومنهم من عثر على وجه الدليل فوقف عنده فكلَّ عنده. فكل إنسان وقف حيث تعب، ورجع إلى مصالح دنياه وراحة نفسه وموافقة طبعه. فإن استراح من ذلك التعب، واستعمل النظر في الموضع الذي وقف فيه مشى حيث ينتهي به فكره إلى أن يتعب فيقف أيضاً أو يموت.”
― محي الدين بن عربي

“فكيف يدَّعي العاقلُ أنه قد عَلِمَ ربّه من جهةِ "الدليل" وأنَّ الباري معلومٌ له، ولو نظر إلى المفعولات الصناعية، والطبيعية، والتكوينية، والإنبعاثية، والإبداعية، ورأى جهل كل واحد منها بفاعله، لَعَلِمَ أن الله تعالى لا يُعْلَمْ بالدليل أبداً، لكن يُعْلَمْ أنه موجود، وأنَّ العالم مُفتقِرْ إليه افتقاراً "ذاتياً" لا محيصَ له عنه البتّة. قال الله تعالى: "يا أيها الناس أنتم الفقراء إلى الله والله هو الغني الحميد". فمن أراد أن يعرِف لُبَاب التوحيد فلينظر في الآيات الواردة في التوحيد من الكتاب العزيز الذي وحَّد بها نفسه، فلا أحد أعْرَف من الشيء بنفسه. فلتنظُر بما وصفَ نفسه، وتسأل الله تعالى أن يُفْهِمَكَ ذلك، فستقف على علم إلهي لا يبلغ إليه عقل بفكره أبد الآباد.”
― محيي الدين بن عربي

“إن النّفّريّ من أهل الليل، واعلم أعزك الله بسلطانه أن الله جعل الليل لأهله، كما جعل الغيب لنفسه !”
― ابن عربي

“Space and silence are two aspects of the same thing. The same no-thing. They are externalization of inner space and inner silence, which is stillness: the infinitely creative womb of all existence.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

“I feel unspeakably lonely. And I feel - drained. It is a blank state of mind and soul I cannot describe to you as I think it would not make any difference. Also it is a very private feeling I have - that of melting into a perpetual nervous breakdown. I am often questioning myself what I further want to do, who I further wish to be; which parts of me, exactly, are still functioning properly. No answers, darling. At all.”
― Anne Sexton, Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters