Reza

“One of the hallmarks of Western liberalism is an assumption in hindsight of virtuous resistance as the only polite expectation of people on the receiving end of colonialism. While the terrible thing is happening, while the land is still being stolen, and the natives still being killed, any form of opposition is terroristic and must be crushed for the sake of civilization. But decades, centuries later, when enough of the land has been stolen and enough of the natives killed, it is safe enough to venerate resistance in hindsight. I tell stories for a living and there’s a thick thread of narrative by well-meaning white Westerners that exalts the native populations in so many parts of the world for standing up to the occupiers. Makes of their narrative a neat, reflexive arc in which it was always understood by the colonized and, this part implied, the descendants of the colonizer, that what happened was wrong.”
― Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

“Pues amar a Dios significa amarse de verdad a uno mismo; ayudar a otro ser humano a que ame a Dios es amar a otro ser humano; ser ayudado por otro ser humano para amar a Dios significa ser amado.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love

“সময় ফিরে পাওয়া যায় না। সময় চলে যায় নির্মম, ঘাতক, নিয়তিসমান সময়। সময় জাহ্নবী, শোক বেলাভূমি। সময়ের স্রোতে শোকের ওপর পলিমাটি চাপা পড়ে। তারপর একদিন সেই পলিমাটি ফুঁড়ে নতুন নতুন অঙ্কুরের আঙুল বেরোয়। আঙুলগুলো আকাশপানে আবার উঠতে চায়। আশার, বেদনার, সুখের, আনন্দের অঙ্কুরের আঙুল।”
― Mahasweta Devi, Mother of 1084

“It's a nice big fat philosophical question, about: how do you get through? Sometimes you don't survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It's not about that solution. It is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances. It's that, that makes it elegant. Good is just more interesting, more complex, more demanding. Evil is silly, it may be horrible, but at the same time it's not a compelling idea. It's predictable. It needs a tuxedo, it needs a headline, it needs blood, it needs fingernails. It needs all that costume in order to get anybody's attention. But the opposite, which is survival, blossoming, endurance, those things are just more compelling intellectually if not spiritually, and they certainly are spiritually. This is a more fascinating job. We are already born, we are going to die. So you have to do something interesting that you respect in between.”
― Toni Morrison