Bahaa Zaid > Bahaa's Quotes

“انقلب تفسير المفهومات، فلم يعد الكافر، هو فرعون الذي طغى فى البلاد، بل أصبح المواطن الذي يخرج عن طاعته. وقد اتفقت مذاهب الفقه، على إهدار دم الخارج على السلطان، بحجة أنه خارج على الجماعة، من دون أن يهدر احد دم السلطان نفسه الذي استباح حق الجماعة بأسرها.”
― النيهوم, محنة ثقافة مزورة

“فقصة فرعون ليست حكاية تخص المصريين القدماء، بل نموذج يلزم محوه من حياة المصريين إلى الأبد. إن القرآن – فى منهج الجماعة – لا يلعن فرعون الميت منذ ثلاثة آلاف سنة، بل يلعن فرعون الحي، الذي يتناول إفطاره هذا الصباح فى قلعة عسكرية سرق نفقاتها من مال الناس العام، وسط حراسة مشددة من سيافين محترفين، يدفع رواتبهم من مال الناس نفسه.”
― النيهوم, محنة ثقافة مزورة

“The 'Manifesto' being our joint production, I consider myself bound to state that the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus belongs to Marx. That proposition is: that in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organization necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and the oppressed class—the proletariat—cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class—the bourgeoisie—without, at the same time, and once for all, emancipating society at large from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and class struggles.

This proposition, which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin's theory has done for biology, we, both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845.”
― Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto

“Let others pride themselves about how many pages they have written; I'd rather boast about the ones I've read.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“Science is interesting, and if you don't agree you can fuck off.

Note: Dawkins was quoting a former editor of New Scientist Magazine, who is as yet unidentified (possibly Jeremy Webb)”
― Richard Dawkins

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

“The use of self control is like the use of brakes on train. It is useful when you find yourself in wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“If we wish to draw philosophical conclusions about our own existence, our significance, and the significance of the universe itself, our conclusions should be based on empirical knowledge. A truly open mind means forcing our imaginations to conform to the evidence of reality, and not vice versa, whether or not we like the implications.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

“Of course, supernatural acts are what miracles are all about. They are, after all, precisely those things that circumvent the laws of nature. A god who can create the laws of nature can presumably also circumvent them at will. Although why they would have been circumvented so liberally thousands of years ago, before the invention of modern communication instruments that could have recorded them, and not today, is still something to wonder about.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.

Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.”
― Karl Raimund Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies

“My vocal cords lived their own life, wild and free.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star

“To a naive observer, money made out of precious metal was 'sound money' because the piece of precious metal was an 'intrinsically' valuable object, while paper money was 'bad money' because its value was only 'artificial'. But even the layman who holds this opinion accepts the money in the course of business transactions, not for the sake of its industrial use-value, but for the sake of its objective exchange-value, which depends largely upon its monetary employment. He values a gold coin not merely for the sake of its industrial use-value, say because of the possibility of using it as jewellery, but chiefly on account of its monetary utility. But, of course, to do something, and to render an account to oneself of what one does and why one does it, are quite different things.”
― Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit

“At least once every human should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from supermarkets, that safety does not come from policemen, that 'news' is not something that happens to other people. He might learn how his ancestors lived and that he himself is no different--in the crunch his life depends on his agility, alertness, and personal resourcefulness.”
― Robert A. Heinlein