41 Quotes About Iran

Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript oÆ’ a divine letter. You are a mirror reflecting a noble face. This universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself;everything that you want, you are already that. Jalaluddin Rumi

You think of yourselfas a citizen of the universe. You think you belong to this world of dust and matter. Out of this dustyou have created a personal image, and have forgottenabout the essence of your true origin Jalaluddin Rumi

I like Dancing of Indian girls more than my parents’ prayers . Because they dance with love and passion . But my parents just say their prayers because they got used to it . Ali Shariati

My whole being is a dark chantthat will carry you perpetuating youto the dawn of eternal growths and blossomingsin this chant I sighed you, ohin this chant, I grafted you to the tree, to the water, to the fire. Unknown

I am not one of those who believes–as Obama is said to believe–that a solution to the Palestinian statehood question would bring an end to Muslim resentment against the United States. (Incidentally, if he really does believe this, his lethargy and impotence in the face of Netanyahu's consistent double-dealing is even more culpable.) The Islamist fanatics have their own agenda, and, as in the case of Hamas and its Iranian backers, they have already demonstrated that nothing but the destruction of Israel and the removal of American influence from the region will possibly satisfy them. No, it is more the case that justice–and a homeland for the Palestinians–is a good and necessary cause in its own right. It is also a special legal and moral responsibility of the United States, which has several times declared a dual-statehood outcome to be its objective. . Christopher Hitchens

Being articulate is no guarantee of intelligence, ” Zoe said. “I’m not doubting the value of education. I’m doubting its reach. Highly educated politicians still do stupid things. Anthony Weiner was educated; Mugabi was educated; Assad was educated; Mussolini was educated. For all their education, look at them. Michael Benzehabe

If he could not restore her to the status of a respectable woman, then Sohrab would make her into something else entirely, something hitherto unknown in their entire extended family, an educated woman, a professional woman. Jasmin Darznik

First Afghanistan, now Iraq. So who's next? Syria? North Korea? Iran? Where will it all end?' If these illegal interventions are permitted to continue, the implication seems to be, pretty soon, horror of horrors, no murderously repressive regimes might remain. Daniel Kofman

1. Bangladesh.. In 1971 .. Kissinger overrode all advice in order to support the Pakistani generals in both their civilian massacre policy in East Bengal and their armed attack on India from West Pakistan.. This led to a moral and political catastrophe the effects of which are still sorely felt. Kissinger’s undisclosed reason for the ‘tilt’ was the supposed but never materialised ‘brokerage’ offered by the dictator Yahya Khan in the course of secret diplomacy between Nixon and China.. Of the new state of Bangladesh, Kissinger remarked coldly that it was ‘a basket case’ before turning his unsolicited expertise elsewhere.2. Chile.. Kissinger had direct personal knowledge of the CIA’s plan to kidnap and murder General René Schneider, the head of the Chilean Armed Forces .. who refused to countenance military intervention in politics. In his hatred for the Allende Government, Kissinger even outdid Richard Helms .. who warned him that a coup in such a stable democracy would be hard to procure. The murder of Schneider nonetheless went ahead, at Kissinger’s urging and with American financing, just between Allende’s election and his confirmation.. This was one of the relatively few times that Mr Kissinger (his success in getting people to call him ‘Doctor’ is greater than that of most PhDs) involved himself in the assassination of a single named individual rather than the slaughter of anonymous thousands. His jocular remark on this occasion–‘ I don’t see why we have to let a country go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible’–suggests he may have been having the best of times..3. Cyprus.. Kissinger approved of the preparations by Greek Cypriot fascists for the murder of President Makarios, and sanctioned the coup which tried to extend the rule of the Athens junta (a favoured client of his) to the island. When despite great waste of life this coup failed in its objective, which was also Kissinger’s, of enforced partition, Kissinger promiscuously switched sides to support an even bloodier intervention by Turkey. Thomas Boyatt .. went to Kissinger in advance of the anti- Makarios putsch and warned him that it could lead to a civil war. ‘Spare me the civics lecture, ’ replied Kissinger, who as you can readily see had an aphorism for all occa . Christopher Hitchens

Israel's demonstration of its military prowess in 1967 confirmed its status as a 'strategic asset, ' as did its moves to prevent Syrian intervention in Jordan in 1970 in support of the PLO. Under the Nixon doctrine, Israel and Iran were to be 'the guardians of the Gulf, ' and after the fall of the Shah, Israel's perceived role was enhanced. Meanwhile, Israel has provided subsidiary services elsewhere, including Latin America, where direct US support for the most murderous regimes has been impeded by Congress. While there has been internal debate and some fluctuation in US policy, much exaggerated in discussion here, it has been generally true that US support for Israel's militarization and expansion reflected the estimate of its power in the region. The effect has been to turn Israel into a militarized state completely dependent on US aid, willing to undertake tasks that few can endure, such as participation in Guatemalan genocide. For Israel, this is a moral disaster and will eventually become a physical disaster as well. For the Palestinians and many others, it has been a catastrophe, as it may sooner or later be for the entire world, with the growing danger of superpower confrontation. . Noam Chomsky

Whether for good or for bad, the Iran that ultimately rises out of the ashes of last summer's uprising will be unlike the Iran we know today, and for that we can thank the Green Movement, not another round of useless sanctions. Reza Aslan

I asked him what his work was. He answered that he devoted all his time to his political activities... He was undoubtedly busy with the diplomatic relations between his testicles and women's breast. Marjane Satrapi

One man’s fight is another man’s freedom. Carla H. Krueger

Living in the Islamic Republic is like having sex with someone you loathe. Azar Nafisi

To be the mistress of a married man is to have the better role. Do you realize? His dirty shirt, his disgusting underwear, his daily ironing, his bad breath, his hemorrhoid attacks, his fuss, not to mention his bad moods, and his tantrums. Well all that is for his wife. When a married man comes to his mistress.. he's always bleached and ironed, his teeth sparkle, his breath is like perfume, he's in a good mood, he's full of conversation, he is there to have a good time with you. Marjane Satrapi

I've never seen or touched anything."" Can you explain then how you had children?"" You're right. It's true I have four kids. Four! But still I have never seen the male organ. He came into the bedroom, he turned off the light, and then Bam! Bam! Bam! and voila I was pregnant! What's more, I was granted four girls. So I have never seen penises. Marjane Satrapi

On the misty window of her room, she let her finger trace a broken line. She was that line. Azin Sametipour

Even women deeply committed to the emancipatory promises of modernity were alarmed by the "inappropriateness" of unrelated men and omen socializing in the streets. In the women's press, articles exhorted young men to treat women respectfully in public. Other articles encouraged women to act as their own police and to be more observant of their hijab and public modesty. From the beginning, then, women's entry on the streets was subject to the regulatory harassment of men. The modernist heterosocializing promise that invited women to leave their homosocial spaces and become educated companionate partners for modernist men was underwritten by policing of women's public presence through men's street actions. Men at once desired heterosociality of the modern and yet would not surrender the privileged masculinity of the streets. Women's public presence was also underwritten by disciplinary approbation of modernizing women themselves whose emancipatory drive would be jeopardized by unruly public conduct. . Afsaneh Najmabadi

A unified Iran is constituted not only politically but also affectively. Liberty and constitutional rule bring "Affection among us." The affective sentiment- that of bonding among differing brothers-produces political bonds of national unity and was associatively linked with other desires. Perhaps foremost was the desire to care for and defend the mother, in particular her bodily integrity. The same words were commonly used to discuss territory and the female body. Laura Mulvey calls these words keys "that could turn either way between the psychoanalytic and the social" (1980, 180). They are not "just words" that open up to either domain; they mediate between these domains, taking power of desire from one to the other. More appropriately, they should be considered cultural nodes of psyhosocial condensation. Tajavuz, literally meaning transgression, expresses both rape and the invasion of territory. Another effective expression, as already noted, was Khak-i pak-i vatan, the pure soil of the homeland. The word used for "pure, " pak, is saturated with connotations of sexual purity. Linked to the idea of the purity of a female vatan was the metaphoric notion of the "skirt of chastity" (daman-i 'iffat) and its purity-whether it was stained or not. It was the duty of Iranian men to protect that skirt. The weak and sometimes dying figure of motherland pleaded t her dishonorable sons to arise and cut the hands of foreigners from her skirt. Expressing hope for the success of the new constitutional regime by recalling and wishing away the horrors of previous years, an article in Sur-o Israfil addressed Iran in the following terms: "O Iran! O our Mother! You who have given us milk from the blood of your veins for many long years, and who have fed us with the tissues of your own body! Will we ever live to see your unworthy children entrust your skirt of chastity to the hands of foreigners? Will our eyes ever see foreigners tear away the veil of your chastity? . Afsaneh Najmabadi

Zoe stopped one last time in front of the mirror, adjusting her new American dress. She didn’t see the dress, however. She saw what the big Russian did to her. She saw what al- Qaeda did to her. She saw a person shunned by her Persian village. She saw ugliness. Every time she looked in the mirror she saw deficiency. Michael Benzehabe

Anyone who is portraying Israel as a friend is a servant of Israel.I warn some sides against turning enemies into friends and friends into enemies. Some in the Arab world try to present "Israel" as a friend and Iran as a foe. Yet such conspiracies will fail. "Israel" has not been helping because of its hostile and aggressive nature. The Arab world is realising day after day that Iran is a friend, which was highlighted in Iran's support to Gaza and Lebanon. Hassan Nasrallah

Interpreting dreams for Iranians was just as much a sacrament as reading coffee cups was for Turks Soroosh Shahrivar

Diplomacy is so weak and prosaic. Diplomacy must never become an end, itself. Facts are so much more important in science. Yet, I'm beginning to appreciate the value of a soft word and a smile. --Unassimilated pg 294 Michael Benzehabe

Certainly, they'd had to endure the war, but they had each other close by. They had never known the confusion of being a third-worlder, they had always a home! Marjane Satrapi

In the privacy of her century-worn house she donned an old burka to stay warm. Years earlier, the ragged garment had been discarded by her eldest sister, Sarah. Zoe secretly retrieved it so she could wrap herself in its fond memories. Those memories, good and bad, quickened her weary heart. Only one person could help when she got nerved-up. Michael Benzehabe

The men were smashing windows and aiming their weapons through them. The driver had opened the door and was shouting for the women and children to get out and run and hide. But Ilina realized in some vague way that he never managed to actually say the word "hide." He really said, "Women and children, get out, get out, get out! Run and.." The clerk's wife thought it was odd that he had stopped in the middle of a sentence, and even stranger that she herself knew the word, heard the word "hide" in her head when the driver stopped talking. Clark Zlotchew

The most complete gift of God is a life based on knowledge. Unknown

Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'–blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable. Noam Chomsky

The door suddenly opened. A leggy young brunette took two steps into the office and stopped short. Her brown eyes widened, she hastily excused herself and turned to leave. Pérez’s jaw dropped as he looked up at her high heels and ankles. He crawled out from under the desk and turned questioningly to his partner. Thorne didn't hesitate. He took one swift stride from behind, clamped a hand tightly over her mouth, and pulled her back into the room, disregarding her wildly flailing legs and frantic attempts to claw his hands away. He shut the door with a backward thrust of his foot. "What do we do now?" Pérez whined. "Observe." Thorne spoke calmly, as would a professor demonstrating a familiar operation to a beginner. Using both hands, he briskly snapped her neck. She stopped struggling. Clark Zlotchew

Those who are close to us, when they die, divide our world. There is the world of the living, which we finally, in one way or another, succumb to, and then there is the domain of the dead that, like an imaginary friend (or foe) or a secret concubine, constantly beckons, reminding us of our loss. What is memory but a ghost that lurks at the corners of the mind, interrupting our normal course of life, disrupting our sleep in order to remind us of some acute pain or pleasure, something silenced or ignored? We miss not only their presence, or how they felt about us, but ultimately how they allowed us to feel about ourselves or them. (prologue). Azar Nafisi

[I]f you think that American imperialism and its globalised, capitalist form is the most dangerous thing in the world, that means you don't think the Islamic Republic of Iran or North Korea or the Taliban is as bad. Christopher Hitchens

Any deal that recognizes Iran "right" to enrich is a prelude to fiasco and tragedy. Ziad K. Abdelnour

There are different forms of seduction, and the kind I have witnessed in Persian dancers is so unique, such a mixture of subtlety and brazenness, I cannot find a Western equivalent to compare it to. I have seen women of vastly different backgrounds take on that same expression: a hazy, lazy, flirtatious look in their eyes. This sort of seduction is elusive; it is sinewy and tactile. It twists, twirls, winds and unwinds. Hands curl and uncurl while the waist seems to coil and recoil. It is openly seductive but not surrendering. Azar Nafisi

People, like buildings, have facades. Tom created his. His walk was a feat. It had taken him twenty years of killing bad guys and a pair of Tony Lama boots to perfect the illusion. He made sure that everyone felt it by the third clunk of his boot heel. When he entered a crime scene there was a hush, and no one ever quite knew why they were holding their breath. But he did. A crime scene was theater and the stage was his. Michael Benzehabe

The familiar song of a night-singing nightingale rises from somewhere in the garden. A nightingale that in this season of cold should not be in the garden, a nightingale that in a thousand verses of Iranian poetry, in the hours of darkness, for the love of a red rose and in sorrow of its separation from it, has forever sung and will forever sing. Shahriar Mandanipour

As the many male victims of rape in the regime's disgusting jails can testify, this state-run pathology of sexual repression and sexual sadism is not content to degrade women only. Christopher Hitchens

When Iran starts to regulate USA nuclear facilities, it will be a step in the right direction for the safety and security of 300 million people. Steven Magee

A number I'd love to know: the % of those now saying 'we have to vote Obama to stop an attack on Iran' who will support one if Obama does it. Glenn Greenwald