Imad > Imad's Quotes

“لنلاحظ استمرارية قدسية العدد اثني عشر بين الديانات التوحيدية الثلاث:أسباط بني إسرائيل الاثناعشر,وتلاميذ المسيح الاثناعشر,ونقباء الرسول الاثناعشر,وأئمة الشيعة الاثناعشر .ولعله من منطلق هذه القدسية عينها جرى تقسيم أشهر السنة اصطلاحا وتواضعا إلى اثني عشر ”
― جورج طرابيشي, المعجزة أو سبات العقل في الإسلام

“الظلامية هى مثل الثورات، بل أكثر من الثورات ، فى قسوتها على أبنائها . فإن كانت الثورة تنتهي بأكلهم ، فأن الظلامية تبدأ به . فهى لاتطيق وجود متنورين حتى فى صفوف دعاتها.”
― جورج طرابيشي, المرض بالغرب: التحليل النفسي لعصاب جماعي عربي

“فنظراً إلى أن علاقات الرجل بالمرأة في ظل الحضارة الأبوية -التي هي حضارتنا- كانت منذ ألوف السنين ولا تزال علاقات اضطهاد وسيطرة، فإن سحت "طبيعة" تلك العلاقات على العلاقات بين الإنسان والعالم يقدم تبريرات ممتازة لتحكيم مبدأ الاضطهاد والسيطرة في علاقات الإنسان بالعالم، أي علاقات الإنسان بالطبيعة وعلاقات الإنسان بالإنسان سواء بسواء.
والعكس صحيح إلى حد مدهش أيضاً. فبما أن علاقات الإنسان بالعالم، أي علاقاته بالطبيعة والإنسان معاً، كانت إلى يومنا هذا علاقات اضطهاد وسيطرة، فإن سحب طبيعة هذه العلاقات بين الرجل والمرأة يقدم تبريرات ممتازة لاستمرار هذا في اضطهاد هذه والسيطرة عليها.
هي إذن دائرة محكمة الإغلاق. وهي تكرر نفسها أو تتعدد حلقاتها إلى ما لا نهاية حيثما وجدت علاقات اضطهاد وسيطرة وعنف. فالحرب رجولة، والسلام أنوثة. والقوة رجولة، والضعف أنوثة. والسجن للرجال، والبيت للنساء.

ص 6”
― جورج طرابيشي, شرق وغرب .. رجولة وأنوثة: دراسة في أزمة الجنس والحضارة في الرواية العربية

“Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'Here are our monsters,' without immediately turning the monsters into pets.”
― Jacques Derrida

“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
― Joseph Stalin

“The principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.”
― Arthur Koestler

“Creative activity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.”
― Arthur Koestler, Drinkers of Infinity: Essays 1955-1967

“Satan, on the contrary, is thin, ascetic and a fanatical devotee of logic. He reads Machiavelli, Ignatius of Loyola, Marx and Hegel; he is cold and unmerciful to mankind, out of a kind of mathematical mercifulness. He is damned always to do that which is most repugnant to him: to become a slaughterer, in order to abolish slaughtering, to sacrifice lambs so that no more lambs may be slaughtered, to whip people with knouts so that they may learn not to let themselves be whipped, to strip himself of every scruple in the name of a higher scrupulousness, and to challenge the hatred of mankind because of his love for it--an abstract and geometric love.”
― Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon

“Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion. ”
― Arthur Koestler

“Hitherto man had to live with the idea of death as an individual; from now onward mankind will have to live with the idea of its death as a species.”
― Arthur Koestler

“Only once did he remark when the starter,which he was trying to open,literally fell to pieces in his hands,:'If you would write for those filthy boulevard papers,monsieur,you could soon buy a Chevrolet'(which was quite unture:In France the prostitutes of the pen were just as badly rewarded as their colleagues on the street corners).”
― Arthur Koestler, Scum of the Earth

“I think most historians would agree that the part played by impulses of selfish, individual aggression in the holocausts of history was small; first and foremost, the slaughter was meant as an offering to the gods, to king and country, or the future happiness of mankind. The crimes of a Caligula shrink to insignificance compared to the havoc wrought by Torquemada. The number of victims of robbers, highwaymen, rapists, gangsters and other criminals at any period of history is negligible compared to the massive numbers of those cheerfully slain in the name of the true religion, just policy or correct ideology. Heretics were tortured and burnt not in anger but in sorrow, for the good of their immortal souls. Tribal warfare was waged in the purported interest of the tribe, not of the individual. Wars of religion were fought to decide some fine point in theology or semantics. Wars of succession dynastic wars, national wars, civil wars, were fought to decide issues equally remote from the personal self-interest of the combatants.

Let me repeat: the crimes of violence committed for selfish, personal motives are historically insignificant compared to those committed ad majorem gloriam Dei, out of a self-sacrificing devotion to a flag, a leader, a religious faith or a political conviction. Man has always been prepared not only to kill but also to die for good, bad or completely futile causes. And what can be a more valid proof of the reality of the self-transcending urge than this readiness to die for an ideal?”
― Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine

“For in a struggle one must have both legs firmly planted on the
earth. The Party had taught one how to do it. The infinite was a
politically suspect quantity, the `I' a suspect quality. The Party did not
recognize its existence. The definition of an individual was: a multitude
of one million divided by one million.”
― Arthur Koestler