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NABA Quotations Collection

 
 

Updated 10 May 2008

 
 

Please send us your favourite or most inspiring quotation and we shall acknowledge your contribution if you wish. The Webmaster

 
     
  "Religion has been used, politicised, not only by groups but also the official institutions in every Arab country. Nearly everything is theologised, every issue society faces has to be solved by asking if Islam allows it. There is no distinction between the domain of religion and secular space."

Abu Zayd, professor of humanism and Islam quoted by Reuters

 
  We ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

Bertrand Russell

 
  There is no subjugation so perfect as that that which keeps the appearance of freedom, for in that way one captures volition itself.

John Jacques Rousseau (From Emile)

 
  The best argument against democracy is spending 15 minutes with the average voter.

Winston Churchill

 
  The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was 'given' by a foreign to another people for the creation of a new state.  The result was many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless.  With every new conflict their number increase. How much longer is the world willing to ensure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they we driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict.

Bertrand Russell Feb 1970 
(just before he died in a message to the International Conference of Parliamentarians).

 
top Most men, whether men or women, wish above all else to be comfortable, and thought is a pre-eminently uncomfortable process; it brings to the individual far more suffering than happiness in a semi-civilised world which still goes to war.

Vera Brittain 
(Mother of Baroness Shirley Williams from her book: testament toYouth, 1933)

 
  Rules are made for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools. 

Anon

 
  No plan survives the first bullet.

Bismark

 
  Sent by Living Stones: "This is what the Sovereign Lord says: 

"You have gone far enough, O princes of Israel! Give up your violence and oppression and do what is just and right. Stop dispossessing my people, declares the Sovereign Lord." 

(Ezekiel 45:9)

 
  Collections of quotations by Israeli leaders on Palestine and Zionism (Click here)  
 

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."


Winston Churchill

 
 

Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?


Mark Twain

 
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A modest little person, with much to be modest about.

Winston Churchill

 
 

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."


Clarence Darrow

 
 

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts ... for support rather

than illumination."


Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

 
 

I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend ... if you have one."


George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one."


Winston Churchill, in response

 
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I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."


Irvin S. Cobb

 
 

He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by

diligent hard work, he overcame them."


James Reston (about Richard Nixon)

 
 

He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."


Samuel Johnson

 
 

In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."


Charles, Count Talleyrand

 
 

He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."


Forrest Tucker

 
 

His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."


Mae West

 
 

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."


Oscar Wilde

 
 

They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human

knowledge.


Thomas Brackett Reed

 
 

He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.


Robert Redford

 
 

There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."


Jack E. Leonard

 
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He had delusions of adequacy."


Walter Kerr

 
 

He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.


Paul Keating

 
 

He is a self-made man and worships his creator."


John Bright

 
 

I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."


Stephen Bishop

 
 

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."


Oscar Wilde

 
 

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.

Groucho Marx

 
 

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.


Mark Twain

 
 

He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.

William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

 
 

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"


Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

 
 

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.


Moses Hadas

 
 

He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."


Abraham Lincoln

 
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"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."

Billy Wilder

 
  Arabic Quotations