Osama Ayham > Osama's Quotes

“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“There is nothing more despicable than respect based on fear.”
― Albert Camus

“There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace - these qualities you find always in that the true artist captures. You can find it in the turning of the seasons, the way sand trails along a ridge, in the branch clusters of the creosote bush of the pattern of its leaves. We try to copy these patterns in our lives and in our society, seeking the rhythms, the dances, the forms that comfort. Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move towards death.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Whether we like it or not, the one justification for the existence of all religions is death, they need death as much as we need bread to eat.”
― José Saramago, Death with Interruptions

“Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means...”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“To allow only the kind of art that the average man understands is the worst small-mindedness and the murder of mind and spirit. It is my conviction that the intellect can be certain that in doing what most disconcerts the crowd, in pursuing the most daring, unconventional advances and explorations, it will in some highly indirect fashion serve man - and in the long run, all men.”
― Thomas Mann, Doctor Faustus

“To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness

“الخوف لا يمنع من الموت و لكنه يمنع من الحياة.”
― نجيب محفوظ, أولاد حارتنا

“و من عجب ان اهل حارتنا يضحكون, علام يضحكوون ؟ انهم يهتفون للمنتصر ايا كان المنتصر, و يهللون للقوي ايا كان القوي, و يسجدون امام النبابيت يداوون بذلك كله الرعب الكامن في اعماقهم.”
― نجيب محفوظ, أولاد حارتنا

“We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams.”
― H.G. Wells

“عندما يبدأ شخص ما بتنازلات صغيرة, فإن الحياة تفقد كل معناها في النهاية .”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“You have no idea what it is like to watch two blind people fighting. Fighting has always been, more or less, a form of blindness.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“قل لأعمى أنت حر. افتح له الباب الذي كان يفصله عن العالم، وقل له ثانيةً، اذهب فأنت حر. لن يذهب. سيبقى في مكانه وسط الطريق، هو والآخرون، مرعوبين لا يعرفون أين يذهبون.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“إن الضمير الأخلاقي الذي يهاجمه الكثير من الحمقى، وينكره آخرون كثر أيضًا، هو موجود وطالما كان موجودًا ولم يكن من اختراع فلاسفة الدهر الرابع حيث لم تكن الروح أكثر من فرضية مشوشة، فمع مرور الزمن والارتقاء الاجتماعي أيضًا والتبادل الجيني انتهينا إلى تلوين ضميرنا بحمرة الدم وبملوحة الدمع وكأن ذلك لم يكن كافيًا فحوّلنا أعيننا إلى مرايا داخلية، والنتيجة أنها غالبًا تظهر من دون أن تعكس ما كنا نحاول إنكاره لفظيًا.”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“Fear can cause blindness, said the girl with dark glasses, Never a truer word, that could not be truer, we were already blind the moment we turned blind, fear struck us blind, fear will keep us blind”
― José Saramago, Blindness

“عندما نكون في محنة كبيرة وقد أُصبنا بوباء الألم والكرب عندئذٍ يصبح الجانب الحيواني في طبيعتنا أكثر وضوحاً.”
― جوزيه ساراماجو, Blindness

“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
― Isaac Asimov, Foundation

“When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“Don't be afraid, the darkness you're in is no greater than the darkness inside your own body, they are two darknesses separated by a skin, I bet you've never thought of that, you carry a darkness about with you all the time and that doesn't frighten you...my dear chap, you have to learn to live with the darkness outside just as you learned to live with the darkness inside”
― José Saramago, All the Names

“The worst pain ... isn't the pain you feel at the time, it's the pain you feel later on when there's nothing you can do about it, They say that time heals all wounds, But we never live long enough to test that theory ...”
― José Saramago, The Cave

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”
― Zhuangzi, The Butterfly as Companion: Meditations on the First Three Chapters of the Chuang Tzu

“Music awakens time, awakens us to our finest enjoyment of time.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“Isn't it grand, isn't it good, that language has only one word for everything we associate with love - from utter sanctity to the most fleshly lust? The result is perfect clarity in ambiguity, for love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even at its most fleshly. Love is always simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion; love is our sympathy with organic life.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

“What good would politics be, if it didn’t give everyone the opportunity to make moral compromises.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain