Quotes
I was a 13-year-old kid. The only power I had was my speech.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the "present".
I want to put out the fires of Hell, and burn down the rewards of Paradise. They block the way to God. I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God.
O my Lord, if I worship Thee from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell, and if I worship Thee from hope of Paradise, exclude me thence, but if I worship Thee for Thine own sake then withhold not from me Thine Eternal Beauty
If a friend among your friends errs, make seventy excuses for them.
I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.
If women haven't fully understood the state of inferiority in which they are kept, they will do nothing but perpetuate it.
[S]exual rights are a part of human rights
The fact of living or having grown up in societies without sexual freedom makes sex a subject of constant obsession.
We are not the same as our culture; rather, our culture is what we make of it.
Confession cleans the sinner's soul, it doesn't help the victim.
It is important to publish the unedited words to allow the readers to access the full scope of the harms suffered by victims.
Understand that giving an answer does't mean making up some bullshit excuse that isn't true or doesn't work.
We have to develop the strength to say no.
How does it feel to carry that hate in your heart? Does it lessen as the months go by? It seeps into your days, your nights, until it consumes everything you once were.
Sooner or later you will realize that you are praying to your own shadow, that you are standing in front of mirrors and are worshipping your own reflection.
Hearing people is a precondition for being able to disagree with [it]
A college should be a safe space for thought. Not a safe space from thought.
[S]ome people find it difficult to apologise. It doesn't mean they don't recognise their errors.
Laws were broken, and that's because the laws were wrong.
[W]e should always make a distinction that right and wrong is a very different standard than legal and illegal. The law is no substitute for morality.
Circumstances don't make the man; they only reveal him to himself.
[T]here's a crucial difference between learning from someone, and giving our power away to another person's formulæ. One comes from self-worth, the other comes from the sense of lack.
Cultures evolve through dissent and robust criticism from their members
Many people say that they support a woman's right to choose to wear the niqab because it's her natural right. But what they're doing is supporting an ideology that does not believe in a woman's right to do anything except cover her face.
The battles over women's bodies can be won only by a revolution of the mind.
To the girls of the Middle East and North Africa: Be immodest, rebel, disobey, and know you deserve to be free
We must speak—blaspheme, if necessary; be accused of being apostates, if that is what is required.
We stand on the shoulders of these women, and we must fortify our own shoulders for those to come.
[L]et's acknowledge the difference between speaking up with intention and speaking up for attention.
Absolute honesty isn't always the most diplomatic, nor the safest form of communication with emotional beings.
Newton's third law. The only way humans have ever figured out of getting somewhere is to leave something behind.
Fear makes others follow.
Your rights matter, because you never know when you are going to need them.
Kindness can only be repaid with kindness. It can't be repaid with expressions like 'thank you'.
Don't kill doves in the garden. You kill one, and the others won't come.
Malicious technology can't be excused if it has some good effects.
I think in general, audience is a lot smarter than the most people think; so it's not "know your audience", it's respect your audience and really know your content.
Most often in the course of our life we think less with words and concepts than they think themselves through us.
As the preacher said, "I could write shorter sermons but when I get started I'm too lazy to stop."
The lack of understanding of something is not evidence for God. It's evidence of lack of understanding.
Vices of those who would repress the opinions of others is they make themselves prisoners of their own opinions because they deny themselves the right and the means of changing them.
Food choices are determined by many factors, but reason (even consciousness) is not generally high on the list.
If we were to one day encounter a form of life more powerful and intelligent than our own, and it regarded us as we regard fish, what would be our argument against being eaten?
It's always possible to wake someone from sleep, but no amount of noise will wake someone who is pretending to be asleep.
We live in a world in which it's conventional to treat an animal like a hunk of wood and extreme to treat an animal like an animal.
What we forget about animals we being to forget about ourselves.
Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.
When you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed.
As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.
[I]f a piece of code is written by multiple authors, none of them understand it as well as a single author would.
If you start with too big a problem, you may never quite be able to encompass it. So if you need to write a big, complex program, the best way to begin may not be to write a spec for it, but to write a prototype that solves a subset of the problem.
Whatever the advantages of planning, they're often outweighed by the advantages of being able to keep a program in your head.
What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.
Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus.
How do I know that I know this except that I have always been taught this and never heard anything else?
Nothing can destroy a government more quickly than its failure to observe its own laws, or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.
An unjust law is no law at all
[T]o be strong in the face of oppression is not the same as overcoming oppression
[A]n individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas.
A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
If the Government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.
[W]hat is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge?
You have been told [...] you are as weak as your weakest link.
[O]ne is never so pretty after being mended, you know.
[A] long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.
For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform, and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver
The more simple any thing is, the less liable it is to be disordered; and the easier repaired when disordered
Who the Author of this Production is, is wholly unnecessary to the Public, as the Object for Attention is the DOCTRINE ITSELF, not the MAN.
[T]o delay Justice is Injustice.