Abdolkarim Soroush Quotes

#1. People first concern themselves with meeting their basic needs; only afterwards, do they pursue any higher needs.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#2. It is impossible to advance new theories ... when you are under the influence of a particular view, or under the pressure of a particular dogma.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#3. Establishing an equilibrium between the Islam of truth and Islam as an identity is one of the most difficult tasks of religious intellectuals.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#4. Haters may hate, but we can't stop loving.

Anamika Mishra

#5. Arresting development, attacking science, and glorifying poverty is not the answer to the vices that attend prosperity.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#6. Energy is a concept that has been coined by physicists. There is no observable thing known as energy anywhere.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#7. My mother used to say, If other people have a problem with you, that's their problem. It's not your problem. I still have that philosophy today.

Michael Michele

#8. I've never been interested in being relevant.

Nick Cave

#9. The clergy earns its living from religion. If your interests are secured through religion, then you will defend your interests first, and religion will become secondary.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#10. God manifests himself in each historical period according to the understanding of the people of the era.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#11. In order for answers to become clear, the questions have to be clear.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#12. If a group of people feels that it has been humiliated and that its honour has been trampled underfoot, it will want to express its identity and this expression of an identity will take different shapes and forms.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#13. We coin concepts and we use them to analyse and explain nature and society. But we seem to forget, midway, that these concepts are our own constructs and start equating them with reality.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#14. Anything that doesn't make sense, I don't want to give too much of my brain to.

Steve McQueen

#15. We must break problems down into small, digestible bits. We must define the concepts that we use and explain what components they consist of. We must tackle small problems.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#16. People should know what they want, not just what they don't want.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#17. Compromise has a negative connotation.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#18. In many of the things that people do, they themselves are the centre of attention, but they inscribe some other name on their banner.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#19. A realistic view of humanity will stop the proliferation of impossible injunctions.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#20. We no longer claim that a genuinely religious government can be democratic, but that it cannot be otherwise.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#21. It is up to God to reveal a religion, but up to us to understand and realise it.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#22. After the 9/11 incidents, Islam has become a big question mark among westerners, especially Americans. The mass media constantly raise the issue of relationship between Islam and terrorism.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#23. The child learns so easily because he has a natural gift, but adults, because they are tyrants, ignore natural gifts and say that children must learn through the same process that they learned by. We insist upon forced mental feeding and our lessons

Rabindranath Tagore

#24. Headaches were like birds. Starlings. They could be perfectly calm, then a single acorn could drop and send the entire flock to the sky.

Erika Swyler

#25. When I have an idea, I'm like a pregnant woman. I just have to deliver.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#26. You can't control the universe, but if you learn to practice meditation and mindfulness you may be able to control yourself.

Debasish Mridha

#27. Goals and objectives are based on theories and foundations.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#28. Human beings can remain spiritual and religious while enjoying the benefits of rational administration of their affairs.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#29. It's all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation

Rob Gilbert

#30. As a result of the awareness and consciousness of decline, an awareness and consciousness of a national ethnicity or an Islamic identity also came into being.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#31. Islam, or any religion, will become totalitarian if it is made into an ideology, because that is the nature of ideologies.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#32. One of the achievements of the reform movement is that people realize that they can be democrats and remain faithful Muslims. Democracy is now an established idea.

Abdolkarim Soroush

#33. There are all sorts of cries that the leaders of the Green Movement should submit themselves to the supreme leader, but that won't take place. Both sides have to be prepared for a serious negotiation.

Abdolkarim Soroush