“There’s an Oriental saying I like: “If aggression meets empty space it tends to defeat itself.”
― Matthew Reilly, quote from The Tournament
“I snorted. ‘For a great sultan who is lord and ruler of all that he surveys, his English is lamentably poor. He can’t even spell England properly.’
Still holding the note, Mr Ascham looked up at me. ‘Is that so? Tell me, Bess, do you speak his language? Any Arabic or Turkish-Arabic?’
‘You know that I do not.’
‘Then however lamentable his English may be, he still speaks your language while you cannot speak his. To me, this gives him a considerable advantage over you. Always pause before you criticise, and never unduly criticise one who has made an effort at something you yourself have not even attempted.”
― Matthew Reilly, quote from The Tournament
“So it is with Moslem women and their veils,’ Michelangelo said. ‘When they saw Muhammad’s wives wearing veils, they sought to imitate them, and so now nearly all Islamic women wear veils even though there is no stipulation in their Holy Koran that they do so.”
― Matthew Reilly, quote from The Tournament
“That’s not the whole of it. As with many other faiths—including our own Christian one—a small group of zealots have distorted Islam to further their own agenda. When many women took to imitating the fashions of the Prophet’s wives, some Moslem men saw an opportunity to put all women under their thumb. They espoused foul laws like those allowing a man to beat his wife or force her into his bed.”
― Matthew Reilly, quote from The Tournament
“The Church’s war against women occurred not under Christ—who by all accounts held women as equals to men—but through the writings of St Irenaeus and Tertullian, and that most cruel woman-hater of them all, St Paul, whose hostile views on women were unfortunately included in the Bible. But let me be clear, it is not only a Catholic problem; it is a Christian one: Martin Luther, the scourge of the old Church, shares its views on women. He once wrote: “Girls begin to talk and to stand on their feet sooner than boys because weeds always grow up more quickly than good crops.” Weeds! Weeds!”
― Matthew Reilly, quote from The Tournament
“The problem, as I see it, are the twin human creations of marriage and religion. It is marriage and religion that make copulation complex and hurtful. Marriage brings up notions of trust, cuckoldry and ownership, while religion makes certain kinds of intimacy sinful.”
― Matthew Reilly, quote from The Tournament
“What people do in the name of religion is not necessarily religious. It often has baser reasons behind it.”
― Matthew Reilly, quote from The Tournament
Matthew Reilly
Born place: in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Born date July 2, 1974
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“-Te dije que sonaría como una...
-No, no es así
SÍ, SÍ QUE ES ASÍ
Shhh.
ESTE ES MI INFIERNO, LO JURO. CUANDO PASE A MEJOR VIDA Y ME CASTIGUEN POR MIS PECADOS, ESTE SERÁ MI TORMENTO. VIVIRÉ RODEADO POR UN MAR DE ADOLESCENTES NIÑOSMONOS ENAMORADOS. CHAPOTEANDO EN CHARCOS DE SU PROPIA BABA.”
― Jay Kristoff, quote from Kinslayer
“I have plotted Lombroso's findings in figure 4-3, and it can be seen that he found peaks of productivity in the late spring and early fall.”
― Kay Redfield Jamison, quote from Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament
“Where does a man go when there are no more corners to turn, when he's running out of hope, out of luck, out of time?”
― Doug Stanton, quote from In Harm's Way: The Sinking of the USS Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors
“We are all looking for a place in life, somewhere we fit. It’s not a place that changes who we are or what we do – perhaps it shapes us, makes us better, makes us more - but mostly it shelters us with a sense of peace, a sense that whatever we do, whoever we are, we’re not alone in it.
I was lucky enough to find that place, when I was sixteen years old.”
― Samantha Young, quote from Into the Deep
“الذّكاء هو إخفاق في الارتقاء. في عصر الإنسان البدائي ما قبل التّاريخي، أتخيّل جيّدًا، وسط قبيلة صغيرة، كلّ الأطفال و هم يركضون وسط الأدغال، و يطاردون العظّايات، و يقطفون العنبيّات للعشاء، و يتعلّمون تدريجيًّا، من خلال احتكاكهم بالبالغين، أن يكونوا رجالًا و نساء كاملين: صيّادون، قطّافون، صيّادو سمك، دبّاغون... و لكن إذا أمعنّا النّظر في حياة هذه القبيلة سنكتشف أنّ بعض الأطفال لا يشاركون في أنشطة الجماعة: يظلّون جالسين قرب النّار، آمنين داخل الكهف.
سوف لن يحسنوا قط الدّفاع عن أنفسهم ذد نمور بأنياب قاطعة، ولا أن يصطادوا، سوف لن يبقوا، باستسلامهم، أحياء لليلة واحدة. و إذا كانوا يمضون أيّامهم دون أن يفعلوا شيئًا، فذلك ليس بسبب الكسل و الخمول، بل يرغبون في أن يقفزوا و يلهوا مع زملائهم و لكنّهم لا يستطيعون. فالطّبيعة، حينما أنجبتهم إلى الدّني، أصابتهم بالعجز. في هذه القبيلة الصّغيرة، ثمّة طفلة ضريرة و صبيّ أعرج، و آخر أخرق و شارد الذّهن...
و بالتّالي، يلزمون طيلة النّهار مسكنهم، و لأنّ ليس لديهم ما يفعلوه سوى ألعاب الفيديو التي لم تخترع بعد، يضطرّون للتّفكير و ترك أفكارهم شاردة. فيمضون وقتهم في التّفكير، في محاولة فك طلاسم العالم، في تخيّل حكايات و ابتكارات. و هكذا تولد الحضارة: لأنّ أولادًا عاجزين ليس لديهم ما يفعلونه غير ذلك.”
― Martin Page, quote from How I Became Stupid
Safety in Numbers: F...
The Excellence Habit...
Rumble
Man-Eaters of Kumaon
Perfectly Imperfect
A Corner of the Univ...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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