Aiman Abdel-Samad

“One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”
― Bertrand Russell

“If there are no books. There is no civilization.”
― Thomas Cahill

“Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind.”
― William Shakespeare, King Lear

“Many people remember that when in 1977 the Voyager spacecraft was launched, opinions were canvassed as to what artefacts would be most appropriate to leave in outer space as a signal of man's cultural achievements on earth. The American astronomer Carl Sagan proposed that 'if we are to convey something of what humans are about then music has to be a part of it.' To Sagan's request for suggestions, the eminent biologist Lewis Thomas answered, 'I would send the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.' After a pause, he added, 'But that would be boasting.”
― John Eliot Gardiner, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven