Khaldun Quotes

#1. Historically the first philosopher to enquire deeply into the nature of corruption in society was Ibn Khaldun (1322-1406), whose wandering life was largely spent in the northern littoral of Africa at a time when kingdoms and sultanates were crumbling.

Robert Payne

#2. Those who are conquered," wrote the philosopher Ibn Khaldun in the fourteenth century, "always want to imitate the conqueror in his main characteristics - in his clothing, his crafts, and in all his distinctive traits and customs.

Adam Hochschild

#3. Habits are qualities of the soul.

Ibn Khaldun

#4. Man is the child of customs, not the child of his ancestors.

Ibn Khaldun

#5. Eventually, Aristotle appeared among the Greeks. He improved the methods of logic and systematized its problems and details. He assigned to logic its proper place as the first philosophical discipline and the introduction to philosophy. Therefore he is called the First Teacher.

Ibn Khaldun

#6. Government is an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself.

Ibn Khaldun

#7. He who finds a new path is a pathfinder, even if the trail has to be found again by others; and he who walks far ahead of his contemporaries is a leader, even though centuries pass before he is recognized as such.

Ibn Khaldun

#8. Break the spine of one of my books and I break yours.

Mia James

#9. Businesses owned by responsible and organized merchants shall eventually surpass those owned by wealthy rulers.

Ibn Khaldun

#10. You're breaking out of character, again.

Dave Eggers

#11. Man is essentially ignorant, and becomes learned through acquiring knowledge.

Ibn Khaldun

#12. Geometry enlightlens the intellect and sets one's mind right

Ibn Khaldun

#13. All the sciences came to exist in Arabic. The systematic works on them were written in Arabic writing.

Ibn Khaldun

#14. People are largely ignorant of the interests of the human species.

Ibn Khaldun

#15. The past resembles the future more than one drop of water resembles another.

Ibn Khaldun

#16. We know that the Zanj (blacks) are the least intelligent and the least discerning of mankind, and the least capable of understanding the consequences of actions.

Ibn Khaldun

#17. At the beginning of a dynasty, taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments.

Ibn Khaldun

#18. No matter how long a shallow foundation supports a luxuriant structure, it will always collapse back to its thin rank, flouting out emotions.

Darmie Orem

#19. Sedentary culture is the goal of civilization. It means the end of its lifespan and brings about its corruption.

Ibn Khaldun

#20. The Berbers belong to a powerful, formidable, and numerous people; a true people like so many others, the world has seen - like the Arabs, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans.

Ibn Khaldun

#21. The work ahead will be hard. These times demand the best of us - all of us, but we can do this. Together, we can do this. We can get this country working again. We can get this economy growing again. We can make the safety net safe again. We can do this.

Paul Ryan

#22. Islam is under obligation to gain power over all nations.

Ibn Khaldun

#23. I think when I finally got it in my head that I was going to do the story, I wanted to avoid doing what I thought people wanted me to do.

Adrian Tomine

#24. Throughout history many nations have suffered a physical defeat, but that has never marked the end of a nation. But when a nation has become the victim of a psychological defeat, then that marks the end of a nation.

Ibn Khaldun

#25. The sciences of only one nation, the Greeks, have come down to us, because they were translated through Al-Ma'mun's efforts. He was successful in this direction because he had many translators at his disposal and spent much money in this connection.

Ibn Khaldun

#26. Therefore, the Negro nation are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because [Negroes] have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated.

Ibn Khaldun