Reza > Reza's Quotes

“You think because he doesn't love you that you are worthless. You think that because he doesn't want you anymore that he is right -- that his judgement and opinion of you are correct. If he throws you out, then you are garbage. You think he belongs to you because you want to belong to him. Don't. It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love. Love shouldn't be like that. Did you ever see the way the clouds love a mountain? They circle all around it; sometimes you can't even see the mountain for the clouds. But you know what? You go up top and what do you see? His head. The clouds never cover the head. His head pokes through, beacuse the clouds let him; they don't wrap him up. They let him keep his head up high, free, with nothing to hide him or bind him. You can't own a human being. You can't lose what you don't own. Suppose you did own him. Could you really love somebody who was absolutely nobody without you? You really want somebody like that? Somebody who falls apart when you walk out the door? You don't, do you? And neither does he. You're turning over your whole life to him. Your whole life, girl. And if it means so little to you that you can just give it away, hand it to him, then why should it mean any more to him? He can't value you more than you value yourself.”
― Toni Morrison

“There are others, honest men beyond all doubt and sincerely concerned with their people's welfare, who seem to feel that it is the duty of a leader to discourage Negro mass action. They think that best results can be achieved by the quiet negotiations they carry on. And so when something happens that arouses the masses of people, and when the people gather in righteous anger to demand that militant actions be started, such men believe it their duty to cool things off.”
― Paul Robeson, Here I Stand

“ It's not about if I can! I'm doing this because I want to... If I have to die fighting for it, then I die.”
― Eiichiro Oda

“The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains.”
― Al-Maʿarri

“This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America”
― Paul Robeson

“The answer to injustice is not to silence the critic, but to end the injustice.”
― Paul Robeson

“Humanity follows two world-wide sects:
One, man intelligent without religion,
The second, religious without intellect.”
― Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī

“I do not hesitate one second to state clearly and unmistakably: I belong to the American resistance movement which fights against American imperialism, just as the resistance movement fought against Hitler.”
― Paul Robeson

“Good men's actions are natural
While a scoundrel's charity
Is carefully planned to please.”
― Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri, Birds Through a Ceiling of Alabaster: Three Abbasid Poets

“The man who accepts Western values absolutely, finds his creative faculties becoming so warped and stunted that he is almost completely dependent on external satisfactions; and the moment he becomes frustrated in his search for these, he begins to develop neurotic symptoms, to feel that life is not worth living, and, in chronic cases, to take his own life.”
― Paul Robeson, Paul Robeson Speaks: Writings, Speeches, and Interviews, a Centennial Celebration

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
― Dom Helder Camara, Dom Helder Camara: Essential Writings

“Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”
― Narcotics Anonymous

“No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.”
― Bertrand Russell

“Reason forbade me many things which,
Instinctively, my nature was attracted to;
And a perpetual loss I feel if, knowing,
I believe a falsehood or deny the truth.”
― Abu Al-Alaa Al-Maarri

“If you don't like someone's story, write your own.”
― Chinua Achebe

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.

[These words are also inscribed upon his grave]”
― Karl Marx, Eleven Theses on Feuerbach

“There is no imam but the mind, who guides by day and night.”
― Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri, The Luzumiyat Of Abu'l-Ala: Selected From His Luzum Ma La Yalzam And Suct Uz-Zand

“Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”
― Rosa Luxemburg

“Don't believe what you're told unless your mind
Confirms its truth: palm trunks, lofty as clouds,
Stay wood.”
― Abu al-Ala al-Ma'arri, Birds Through a Ceiling of Alabaster: Three Abbasid Poets

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”
― Epicurus

“There is often talk of human rights, but it is also necessary to talk of the rights of humanity. Why should some people walk barefoot, so that others can travel in luxurious cars? Why should some live for thirty-five years, so that others can live for seventy years? Why should some be miserably poor, so that others can be hugely rich? I speak on behalf of the children in the world who do not have a piece of bread. I speak on the behalf of the sick who have no medicine, of those whose rights to life and human dignity have been denied.”
― Fidel Castro

“The Prophets, too, among us come to teach,
Are one with those who from the pulpit preach;
They pray, and slay, and pass away,
and yet Our ills are as the pebbles on the beach.
Mohammed or Messiah! Hear thou me,
The truth entire nor here nor there can be;
How should our God who made the sun and the moon
Give all his light to One, I cannot see.”
― Abu Al-Maari

“A revolution is not a bed of roses. A revolution is a struggle between the future and the past.”
― Fidel Castro

“The ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illness, poverty or hunger.”
― Fidel Castro

“Why should I fear death?
If I am, then death is not.
If Death is, then I am not.
Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not?
Long time men lay oppressed with slavish fear.
Religious tyranny did domineer.
At length the mighty one of Greece
Began to assent the liberty of man.”
― Epicurus

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.”
― Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

“Now this religion happens to prevail
Until by that religion overthrown,–
Because men dare not live with men alone,
But always with another fairy-tale”
― Abu al-A'lā al-Ma'arrī