Zain

“What we are and what we possess is but a loan- and that not for long! Do not clutch what has been given to you, for joy and desire to possess are but nails fastening you to the perishable world.”
― Nizami Ganjavi, Layla and Majnun

“I know well that, at this hour, I could as easily forget your name as the food by which I live by; nay, it were easier to forget the food, which only nourishes by body miserably, than your name, which nourishes both body and soul, filling the one and the other with such sweetness that neither weariness nor fear of death is felt by me while memory preserves you to my mind. Think, if the eyes could also enjoy their portion, in what condition I should find myself.”
― Michelangelo

“Ever since I was a child I used to hear my father say: ‘If the price we pay for freedom is high, we pay a much higher price if we accept to be slaves.”
― Nawal El Saadawi, Walking through Fire: The Later Years of Nawal El Saadawi, In Her Own Words

“A successful prostitute was better than a misled saint. All women are victims of deception. Men impose deception on women and punish them for being deceived, force them down to the lowest level and punish them for falling so low, bind them in marriage and then chastise them with menial service for life, or insults, or blows.”
― Nawal El-Saadawi, Woman at Point Zero