“If only I believed that there is any backward and forward in human history! It’s like an octopus, with neither back nor front. For me there’s no word so devoid of meaning as ‘progress.’ What progress, Illarion Palych? Progress from what? To what? In those twenty-seven centuries, have people become better? kinder? or at least a bit happier? No, they’ve become worse, nastier, and unhappier! And all this thanks to beautiful ideas!”
― In the First Circle
― In the First Circle
“En général, on ne demande de conseils, disait-il, que pour ne les pas suivre ; ou, si on les a suivis, que pour avoir quelqu’un à qui l’on puisse faire le reproche de les avoir donnés. »”
― The Three Musketeers: Le Trois Mousquetaires
― The Three Musketeers: Le Trois Mousquetaires
“People are flatterers out of stupidity, and sometimes they smile even though in the depths of their soul they feel immense disgust, a disgust so great they can barely hold it in.”
― The Hive
― The Hive
“Wheresoever the Roman conquers, he inhabits,” is a very just observation of Seneca, confirmed by history and experience”
― The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1: 180-395
― The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1: 180-395
“People describing prisons have always tried to lay the horror on thick. But perhaps prison is most horrible when there is no horror? When the horror consists in the gray routine never varying from week to week? When you forget that the one and only life given to you on this earth has been wrecked? When you are willing to forgive, have already forgiven the swine for all this? When your only thought is how to grab a crusty piece of bread, not one that is all crumb? Or how to get underwear with no holes in it, and not too small, next bath day?”
― In the First Circle
― In the First Circle
حلقة قراء محفوظ Naguib Mahfouz RC
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مجموعة لأعمال وحياة نجيب محفوظ الروائي المصري الراحل الحائز على جائزة نوبل. تناقش المجموعة كل شهر كتابا جديدا من روائع أعمال نجيب محفوظ.. شاركنا الح ...more
Ahmed’s 2024 Year in Books
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