Nafis Dipto > Nafis's Quotes

“In the traditional Islamic world, the hierarchy of the arts was not based on whether they were "fine" or "industrial" or "minor". It was based upon the effect of art on the soul of the human being.”
― Seyyed Hossein Nasr, A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World

“It is for Muslim scholars to study the whole history of Islamic science completely and not only the chapters and periods which influenced Western science. It is also for Muslim scholars to present the tradition of Islamic science from the point of view of Islam itself and not from the point of view of the scientism, rationalism and positivism which have dominated the history of science in the West since the establishment of the discipline in the early part of the 20th century in Europe and America.”
― Seyyed Hossein Nasr, A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World

“Protestantism and Catholicism must not be compared to Sunnism and Shi'ism in the Islamic context as has been done by certain scholars. Sunnism and Shi'ism both go back to the origins of Islam and the very beginning of Islamic history whereas Protestantism is a later protest against the existing Catholic Church and came into being some fifteen hundred years after the foundation of Christianity.”
― Seyyed Hossein Nasr, A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World

“Modern science was born through the Scientific Revolution in the 11th/17th century at a time when, as we saw earlier, European philosophy had itself rebelled against revelation and the religious world view. The background of modern science is a particular philosophical outlook which sees the parameters of the physical world, that is, space, time, matter and energy to be realities that are independent of higher orders of being and cut off from the power of God, at least during the unfolding of the history of the cosmos. It views the physical world as being primarily the subject of mathematicization and quatification and, in a sense, absolutizes the mathematical study of nature relegating the non-quantifiable aspects of physical existence to irrelevance.”
― Seyyed Hossein Nasr, A Young Muslim's Guide to the Modern World

“The Afghanis converted from Buddhism and some of the greatest Muslims came out of that Buddhist tradition. In fact Balkh was a center for Buddhist logic and those logicians became Muslim and introduced interestingly enough into Islamic theology some Buddhist logical formations that dont exist in Greek logic.

Greek logic does not have a "neither A nor B" type scenario whereas Nagarjunian logic which is Buddhist logic does. In traditional Islamic theology you have situations where they do have that "neither A nor B". [...] I can't say "definitely" but I really believe that it does come out of the influence that the Buddhist logicians had on Islam. I actually wrote a paper “how the Buddhists saved Islam” which was about that but somebody said [...] [do not submit it] as you will get too much flak.
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― Hamza Yusuf, Vision of Islam

“I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which derives from abstinence; the contentment of a full belly; the richness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving of sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the chill of dawn.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands

“In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands

“What use will money be to him in the Sands.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands

“I tasted freedom and a way of life from which there could be no recall.”
― Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands

“There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature.”
― Bruce Rosenblum, Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness

“The highest goal that man can achieve is amazement.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Theory of Colours

“Blue: as yellow is always accompanied with light, so it may be said that blue still brings a principle of darkness with it. This color has a peculiar and almost indescribable effect on the eye. As a hue it is powerful - but it is on the negative side, and in its highest purity is, as it were, a stimulating negation. Its appearance, then, is a kind of contradiction between excitement and repose.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Theory of Colours

“Blue gives us an impression of cold, and thus, again, reminds us of shade. We have before spoken of its affinity with black.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Theory of Colours

“Light and darkness, brightness and obscurity, or if a more general expression is preferred, light and its absence, are necessary to the production of color… Color itself is a degree of darkness.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Theory of Colours

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis