Blind Al Quotes

The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.

An eye is meant to see things. The soul is here for its own joy. A head has one use: For loving a true love. Feet: To chase after. Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind, for learning what men have done and tried to do. Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind when it only wants to see why. A lover is always accused of something. But when he finds his love, whatever was lost in the looking comes back completely changed.

تبسمك في وجه أخيك صدقة، وأمرك بالمعروف صدقة ونهيك عن المنكر صدقة، وإرشادك الرجل في أرض الضلال لك صدقة، ونصرك الرجل الرديء البصر لك صدقة، وإماطتك الحجر والشوك العظم عن الطريق لك صدقة Smiling in your brother’s face is an act of charity. So is enjoining good and forbidding evil, giving directions to the lost traveller, aiding the blind and removing obstacles from the path. (Graded authentic by Ibn Hajar and al-Albani: Hidaayat-ur-Ruwaah, 2/293)

What earth is this so in want of you they rise up on high to seek you in heaven? Look at them staring at you right before their eyes, unseeing, unseeing, blind.

Anders als Liebe macht Angst tatsächlich blind.

Now this court will learn that I am the greatest in wit and courage. I am he whose writing the blind see and whose words grant hearing to the deaf. Content with complete verses, I sleep, while others strain for simple rhymes. I laughed at the frauds and their ignorance until, with discerning hand and mouth, I destroy them. If you see the lion bare his teeth, do not assume he is smiling!

We can believe in the future and work to achieve it and preserve it, or we can whirl blindly on, behaving as if one day there will be no children to inherit our legacy. The choice is ours; the earth is in balance.

Creatures perish in the darkened blind of quest, knowing intimations. Guessing and dreaming they pursue the real, faces turned toward the sky whispering secrets to the heavens. While the lord remains among them in every turn of time abiding in their every condition every instant. Never without him, they, not for the blink of an eye -- if only they knew! nor he for a moment without them.

For such people, the ruling gods are progress, science, and development. They imagine that we know so much more about the world than those people of olden times, because "we" have science. Of course, they themselves do not have science, they have simply heard and believed that scientific knowledge is real knowledge. They know little about the goals and methods of science, and nothing about the Islamic Intellectual tradition. They are blind imitators in intellectual issues, that is, on the level where they should be striving for their own understanding. What is worse, this is a selective imitation, since they only accept the authority of the "scientists" and the "experts", not that of the great Muslim thinkers of the past. If Einstein said it, it must be true, but if Al-Ghazali or Mulla Sadra said it, then it can't be true, because it isn't scientific.

Liebe macht nicht blind. Der Liebende sieht nur weit mehr als da ist.

Of course," agreed Basil, "if you read it carelessly, and act on it rashly, with the blind faith of a fanatic; it might very well lead to trouble. But nature is full of devices for eliminating anything that cannot master its environment. The words 'to worship me' are all-important. The only excuse for using a drug of any sort, whether it's quinine or Epsom-salt, is to assist nature to overcome some obstacle to her proper functions. The danger of the so-called habit-forming drugs is that they fool you into trying to dodge the toil essential to spiritual and intellectual development. But they are not simply man-traps. There is nothing in nature which cannot be used for our benefit, and it is up to us to use it wisely. Now, in the work you have been doing in the last week, heroin might have helped you to concentrate your mind, and cocaine to overcome the effects of fatigue. And the reason you did not use them was that a burnt child dreads fire. We had the same trouble with teaching Hermes and Dionysus to swim. They found themselves in danger of being drowned and thought the best way was to avoid going near the water. But that didn't help them to use their natural faculties to the best advantage, so I made them confront the sea again and again, until they decided that the best way to avoid drowning was to learn how to deal with oceans in every detail. It sounds pretty obvious when you put it like that, yet while every one agrees with me about the swimming, I am howled down on all sides when I apply the same principles to the use of drugs.

Durch die Gitterfenster seiner Individualität starrt der Mensch hoffnungslos auf die Ringmauern der äußeren Umstände, bis der Tod kommt und ihn zu Heimkehr und Freiheit ruft … Individualität!… Ach, was man ist, kann und hat, scheint arm, grau, unzulänglich und langweilig; was man aber nicht ist, nicht kann und nicht hat, das eben ist es, worauf man mit jenem sehnsüchtigen Neide blickt, der zur Liebe wird, weil er sich fürchtet, zum Haß zu werden. Ich trage den Keim, den Ansatz, die Möglichkeit zu allen Befähigungen und Betätigungen der Welt in mir … Wo könnte ich sein, wenn ich nicht hier wäre! Wer, was, wie könnte ich sein, wenn ich nicht ich wäre, wenn diese meine persönliche Erscheinung mich nicht abschlösse und mein Bewußtsein von dem aller derer trennte, die nicht ich sind! Organismus! Blinde, unbedachte, bedauerliche Eruption des drängenden Willens! Besser, wahrhaftig, dieser Wille webt frei in raum- und zeitloser Nacht, als daß er in einem Kerker schmachtet, der von dem zitternden und wankenden Flämmchen des Intellektes notdürftig erhellt wird!

To be blinded by her light while she drowned me in her sea of dark.

Gradually, I realized that the ideas I had embraced and defended blindly all my life represented a singular, and highly radical, point of view. I began to question everything.

The worst thing we can do is think that something we’re feeling is so wrong and horrible that we isolate ourselves from God, thinking we’re not worthy of being in His presence. We must remember that Allah doesn’t expect us to be perfect; after all, our sense of self-worth is not dependent on us, but on God. When we bring our poverty, our neediness, and our nothingness to God, He meets us with His generosity (Al-Karim), His ability to satisfy all needs (As-Samad), and His richness (Al-Ghaniy). Just as if you want light in your room you must open the blinds, if you want the shadows and dark places in your being to dissolve, you have to open your heart to the light of Allah. In essence, all of existence is just a reflection of the light of God’s grace manifesting into different forms.

Be warned. I had rehearsed losing him not just to ward off suffering by taking it in small doses beforehand, but, as al superstitious people do, to see if my willingness to accept the very worst might not induce fate to soften its blow. Like soldiers trained to fight by night, I lived in the dark so as not to be blinded when darkness came. Rehearse the pain to dul the pain.

He said that the light of the world was in men’s eyes only for the world itself moved in eternal darkness and darkness was its true nature and true condition and that in this darkness it turned with perfect cohesion in all its parts but that there was naught there to see. He said that the world was sentient to its core and secret and black beyond men’s imagining and that its nature did not reside in what could be seen or not seen. He said that he could stare down the sun and what use was that? These words seemed to silence his friend. They sat side by side on the bridge. The sun shone upon them. Finally the man asked him how he had come by such views and he answered that they were things he’d long suspected and that the blind have much to contemplate. They rose to go. The blind man asked his friend which way he was going. The man hesitated. He asked the blind man which way he. The blind man pointed with his stave. Al norte, he said. Al sur, said the other. He nodded. He offered his hand into the darkness and they said their farewell.

Nunca se puede saber de antemano de qué son capaces las personas, hay que esperar, dar tiempo al tiempo, el tiempo es el que manda, el tiempo es quien está jugando al otro lado de la mesa y tiene en su mano todas las cartas de la baraja, a nosotros nos corresponde inventar los encartes con la vida, la nuestra...

El médico se identificó cuando se pusieron al teléfono, luego dijo rápidamente, Bien, gracias, sin duda la telefonista le había preguntado, Cómo está, doctor, es lo que decimos cuando no queremos mostrar nuestra debilidad, decimos, Bien, aunque nos estemos muriendo, a esto le llama el vulgo hacer de tripas corazón, fenómeno de conversión visceral que sólo en la especie humana ha sido observado.

Se escribe para recordar, para ser recordado, para vencer la amnesia, el silencio, el agujero oscuro del tiempo. Se escribe también para no morir, para durar. Se escribe como medicina, para consolarse, para consolar. Para volver inofensivo al dolor. Se escribe para ser feliz, se escribe para testimoniar, para dejar testamento de uno. Se escribe para jugar. Se escribe para darle un sentido a la insensatez del mundo. Para evocar. Para bautizar las cosas, para prorrogar la vida, para persuadir, para seducir. Para profetizar. Para lavarse el corazón. Para conocerse, para saber quién somos

La faz de la tierra que nosotros pisamos conduce al mismo centro del globo terráqueo, y éste a su vez, ha absorbido una cantidad asombrosa de tiempo.

If the sea could speak, he thought blindly, it would be screaming at him

Blinders als blind ist die Aengstlicher

Mischief and mayhem and the promise of a blinding, blissful ride.

For surely it is not the eyes that are blind, but blinded are the hearts which are in the breasts

Alles verliest zijn waarde als het er altijd is, alsof je langzaam blind wordt. Dat hij van Sally hield, begreep hij ook pas toen ze langer de zijne was.

Obviously, al-Ghazali rejected the Mu‘tazilite position that there is no faith without reason, or that faith requires rational assent, since for him reason is “blind.

We tangoed every night, while I was blinded by the scent of you, I’m Frankie Slade, shoot my head, you held me back.

The fall of man is the result of the blinding of the ‘eye of the heart’ (chashm-i dil or ‘ayn al-qalb), which alone sees with the vision of gnosis.

Oskar antwortet: Afrika suchte ich unter den Röcken, womöglich Neapel, das man bekantlich gesehen haben nuß. Da flossen die Ströme zusammen, da war die Wasserscheide, da wehten besondere Winde, da konnte es aber auch windstill sein, da rauschte der Regen, aber man saß im Trocken, da machten die Schiffe fest, oder die Anker wurden gelichtet, da saß neben Oskar der liebe Gott, der es schon immer gerne warm gehabt hat, da putzte der Teufel sein Fernrohr, da spielten Engelchen blinde Kuh; unter den Röcken mein Großmutter war immer Sommer, auch wenn der Weihnachtsbaum brannte, auch wenn ich Ostereier suchte oder Allerheiligen feierte. Nirgendwo konnte ich ruhiger nach dem Kalendar leben als unter den Röcken meiner Großmutter.

Late that night, I get back to Grant and Eric’s, and they are watching a movie where Al Pacino is blind. Al Pacino is angry and talks with an unplaceable accent. He is maybe Canadian.

Non si puo' mai sapere in anticipo di cosa siano capaci le persone, bisogna aspettare, dar tempo al tempo, e' il tempo che comanda, il tempo e' il compagno che sta giocando di fronte a noi, e ha in mano tutte le carte del mazzo, a noi ci tocca inventarci le briscole con la vita, la nostra

You cannot win a war if you cannot talk honestly about the enemy Since the 9/11 attacks, political correctness and ideological prejudice—under both Republican and Democratic presidents—have distorted our analysis of the enemy, preventing us from drawing an effective plan to defeat the likes of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. The Obama administration, blinded by its own preconceived ideas of why terrorism occurs, is influenced by malevolent actors who have an interest in censoring any talk of the religious aspects of the enemy’s ideology. At the highest level of the U.S. government, terrorism is deemed to be the result of poverty, unemployment, and lack of political enfranchisement. This fallacy must be jettisoned. We are not at war with Islam. The people most immanently in danger, in fact, are the nonviolent and non-extremist Muslims of the Middle East, such as our allies in Jordan and the modern Muslims of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. They are on the most important front of this war, and they understand just how much religion truly matters. We do a great disservice to those brave Muslims when we try to convince the world that the threat will disappear if enough people have good jobs and sound educations.

Der Anpassungstheorie liegen folgende Annahmen zugrunde: 1. Jede Gesellschaft als soche ist normal; 2. seelisch krann ist, wer von dem von der Gesellschaft favorisierten Persönlichkeitstyp abweicht; 3. das Gesundheitswesen im Bereich von Psychiatrie udn Psychotherapie verfolgt das Ziel, den einzelnen auf das Niveau des Durchschnittschmenschen zu bringen, unabhängig davon, ob dieser blind ist oder nicht blind.

Tempting me into chasing after that blinding, blistering hope. Wanting the striking, stark beauty of it. Hungry for something I’ve always wanted for the people around me, but never thinking I could keep any of it for myself.

Alles bestaat maar en gaat maar door, op iedere zomer volgt een nieuwe zomer, op iedere nacht een dag en weer een nacht, bloemen zijn nauwelijks uitgebloeid en uit de zaden groeien alweer nieuwe, ieder mens krijgt een kind en dat krijgt weer een kind en dat op zijn beurt ook weer een kind, het maakt niet uit wat jou overkomt, want er is in jouw plaats altijd een ander, even goedgelovig en vermeend bijzonder en vervangbaar als jij, en die hele aardse tredmolen draait zo maar door, tot in de eeuwigheid der eeuwigheden. Het laat hem niet meer los, dat gevoel van verdovende herhaling tot in het oneindige. Hij valt in slaap, het is er ’s ochtends nog steeds en de dagen en de nachten daarna. Er is niets om voor wakker te worden, om voor op te staan. Het is alsof hij uitgeput tegen een muur wil leunen, en telkens als hij een stap in zijn richting doet, wijkt de muur terug. Eindelijk begrijpt hij waarom Eliza May bij haar volle verstand voor de naam Emery en de vloek koos. Het was geen keuze voor de dood, het was een keuze juist voor het leven, hartstochtelijk en kort. Alles verliest zijn waarde als het er altijd is, alsof je langzaamaan blind wordt.

Blijft het feit dat ik mijn hand opstak en zei dat het menselijke lot zo duidelijk aan de blinde razernij van het toeval was blootgesteld dat jezelf aan een God toevertrouwen hetzelfde was als plaatjes verzamelen terwijl de stad brandt in het hellevuur.

Bright, blinding light. Motherfucking sunshine. A taste of sweet, sweet lemonade. That’s what Nikki was. Felt myself itching to lean forward and glean some of it. to swim in her calm and her belief. They say sunshine chases away the dark. I swore, all it did was illuminate mine. Amplify why I couldn’t take her. Have her. I was a bastard. A sinner. God knew what I was responsible for. He also knew what I’d be willing to do – vengeance a greed I carried in the palm of my hands. But that girl? She was a sin I’d never again commit.

Optimisme wil beslist niet zeggen dat wordt verkondigd hoe gelukkig de mens is of zou kunnen zijn, maar eenvoudig dat zijn lijden niet voor niets is. Als de wereld slechts was geschapen om in haar ondergang een laatste lichtflits te zijn voor een paar blinde ogen, zelfs dan zou die ondergang nog zin hebben gehad.

Nunca habrá sido en balde el día que fuimos merecedores, al menos, de un buen consejo.

Estoy de paso, había dicho el escritor, y estas son las señales que iba dejando al pasar.

Mooie dingen, allemaal mooie dingen: je hand die voor het eerst een kattenvacht streelt, je moeder die bezorgd je knie verbindt, zes moegedraafde paarden in de zon, het onweer waar augustus mee begon, Diana’s hand die naar je broek afgleed, haar lichaam waar je blind de weg in vond, de kleur van een kwatrijn van J.C. Bloem, Nick Cave die dwars door Paradiso zong, een woord als moerbei, huisraad, ravelijn, de vondst van een nog net niet schurftig rijm:—mooie dingen, allemaal mooie dingen zoals de treinen waarop ik gezoend heb, het zachte golven van een dranklokaal, een meisjeskamer die naar adel geurt, het wonder dat geen dag zich ooit herhaalt, o mooie dingen en mijn mond benoemt het voor ik me met het domme zwart verzoend heb.

Oder wie jener Zeck auf dem Baum, dem doch das Leben nichts anderes zu bieten hat als ein immerwährendes überwintern. Der kleine hässliche Zeck, der seinen bleigrauen Körper zur Kugel formt, um der Außenwelt die geringstmögliche Fläche zu bieten; der seine Haut glatt und derb macht, um nichts zu verströmen, kein bisschen von sich hinauszutranspirieren. Der Zeck, der sich extra klein und unansehnlich macht, damit niemand ihn sehe und zertrete. Der einsame Zeck, der in sich versammelt auf seinem Baume hockt, blind, taub und stumm, und nur wittert, jahrelang wittert, meilenweit, das Blut vorüberwandernder Tiere, die er aus eigner Kraft niemals erreichen wird. Der Zeck könnte sich fallen lassen. Er könnte sich auf den Boden des Waldes fallen lassen, mit seinen sechs winzigen Beinchen ein paar Millimeter dahin und dorthin kriechen und sich unters Laub zum Sterben legen, es wäre nicht schade um ihn, weiß Gott nicht. Aber der Zeck, bockig, stur und eklig, bleibt hocken und lebt und wartet. Wartet, bis ihm der höchst unwahrscheinliche Zufall das Blut in Gestalt eines Tieres direkt unter den Baum treibt. Und dann erst gibt er seine Zurückhaltung auf, lässt sich fallen und krallt und bohrt und beisst sich in das fremde Fleisch...

Zonder geweld zal het niet gaan,' concludeert hij, 'want de groten hebben de macht, maar de kleinen zijn talrijk en tegen de mieren is geen tijger bestand. De mieren zijn echter blind, terwijl de mens beeft voor de dood, want al gelooft hij ook, weten doet hij niet. Men heeft ons de aarde gegeven als een boomgaard waarin het oogsten ons eigen werk zou zijn, dus heeft de mens het gelijkzijn in handen. En toch zullen veel kleinen Allah zien voordat al het werk gedaan is.

Hoe leg je uit wat weerloosheid is en tot wat een mens in staat kan zijn als uw toehoorder nooit heeft gevoeld wat het is om zelf een mogelijke smeerlap te zijn, dat het een zegen is en een vloek dat nooit te hebben gevoeld en dat woede in de fauteuil niks meer is dan schijnheiligheid die blind is voor zichzelf? Mensen zeggen al wel eens dat ge eerst in andermans schoenen moet staan voor ge echte kennis opdoet. Maar ook dat is schijnheilig, want met andermans schoenen wordt altijd weer bedoeld: die van het slachtoffer. Geen woord wordt er gerept over de schoenen van hen die zich misschien geprikkeld voelden om mee te doen. Voor ge de bloeddorst van een ander aanklaagt, van iemand die ge zelfs niet kent, zoudt ge verplicht moeten worden te ervaren wat heimelijke bloeddorst betekent die wordt aangemoedigd door hen die de touwtjes in handen hebben, wier spel gij meespeelt, of ge nu wilt of niet, de bloeddorst, met andere woorden, die ieder in zich heeft.

Se sobresaltó al oír decir, Buenos días, se había perdido la costumbre de dar los buenos días, no sólo porque días de ciegos, propiamente hablando, nunca pueden ser buenos, sino también porque nadie está completamente seguro de que los días no fuesen tardes o noches

Sufis have no set belief or disbelief. Divine light is the only sustenance of their soul, and through this light they see their path clear, and what they see in this light they believe, and what they do not see they do not blindly believe. Yet they do not interfere with another person's belief or disbelief, thinking that perhaps a greater portion of light has kindled his heart, and so he sees and believes that the Sufi cannot see or believe. Or, perhaps a lesser portion of light has kept his sight dim and he cannot see and believe as the Sufi believes. Therefore Sufis leave belief and disbelief to the grade of evolution of every individual soul. The Murshid's work is to kindle the fire of the heart, and to light the torch of the soul of his mureed, and to let the mureed believe and disbelieve as he chooses, while journeying through the path of evolution. But in the end all culminates in one belief, Huma man am, that is, 'I am all that exists'; and all other beliefs are preparatory for this final conviction, which is called Haqq al-Iman in the Sufi terminology.

A Thief Becomes an Abdaal (High-Ranking Saint) Once a thief entered the house of Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) with the intention of stealing. On entering the house, he became blind and could not see anything. He was unable to find his way out of the house and he eventually sat in one corner of the house. In the morning, he was caught and brought before Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) . When Al-Ghawth al-A’zam (r.a) saw him, he placed his blessed hands on the thief’s eyes. The thief’s eyesight was immediately restored. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) then said, “He came to steal materialistic (worldly wealth), I will bless him with such a treasure that it will remain with him forever.” On saying these words, Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) placed his blessed sight on the thief once and elevated him to the status of Wilayat (Sainthood). It was also during this time that one of the appointed Abdaals had passed away. Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani (r.a) took the thief, now a Wali, and sent him out as the replacement for the Abdaal that had passed away. Subhan-Allah!

The animals in the zoo-those that had not been stolen in previous administrations-were slain or left to starve. One zealous, perhaps mad, Taliban jumped into a bear’s cage and cut off his nose, reputedly because the animal’s “beard” was not long enough. Another fighter, intoxicated by events and his own power, leaped into the lion’s den and cried out, “I am the lion now!” The lion killed him. Another Taliban solider threw a grenade into the den, blinding the animal. These two, the noseless bear and the blind lion, together with two wolves, were the only animals that survived Taliban rule.

Islamic tradition does not recognize such presumptuous and conceited preoccupation as "reviewing", which is now widely practised among scholars who regard highly this legacy of the Western tradition modern scholarship. a Muslim scholar, with the work of another before him, would either - according to Islamic tradition - refute it (radd), or elaborate it further in commentary (sharh) as the occasion demands. there is no such thing as "reviewing" it, whether the "review" is termed as such or as any other term which describes it. If there are petty mistakes they turn a blind eye to them; if there are obscurities they explain them in commentary - they polish a positive work and make it shine.

Al ofrecerse para ayudar al ciego, el hombre que luego robó el coche no tenía, en aquel preciso momento, ninguna intención malévola, muy al contrario, lo que hizo no fue más que obedecer a aquellos sentimientos de generosidad y de altruismo que son, como todo el mundo sabe, dos de las mejores características del género humano, que pueden hallarse, incluso, en delincuentes más empedernidos que éste, un simple ladronzuelo de automóviles sin esperanza de ascenso en su carrera, explotado por los verdaderos amos del negocio, que son los que se aprovechan de las necesidades de quien es pobre. A fin de cuentas, no es tan grande la diferencia entre ayudar a un ciego para robarle luego y cuidar a un viejo caduco y baboso con el ojo puesto en la herencia.

Here is a man who by all conventions should have been a denizen of the lower depths of society: ignored, illiterate, disfigured, limping, penniless, blind and deaf. Almost anyone in his place would be bitter, miserable and without hope. Yet here is a man whose constant invocation, dedication to service and association with living saints transformed him into an inestimable gift, a man of knowledge, wisdom, certainty, kindness, lightness of heart and peace. He is, for me, the personification of the words of Shaykh Moulay Al-'Arabi Ad-Darqawi: "Certainly all things are hidden in their opposites – gain in loss and gift in refusal, honor in humiliation, wealth in poverty, strength in weakness, abundance in restriction, rising up in falling down, life in death, victory in defeat, power in powerlessness …

Nun ist Flucht nicht nur weglaufen, sondern auch ankommen. Und die Vergangenheit, in der ich als Rechtshistoriker ankam, war nicht weniger lebensvoll als die Gegenwart. Es ist auch nicht so, wie der Außenstehende vielleicht annehmen möchte, daß man die vergangene Lebensfülle nur beobachtet, während man an der gegenwärtigen teilnimmt. Geschichte treiben heißt Brücken zwischen Vergangenheit und Gegenwart schlagen und beide Ufer beobachten und an beiden tätig werden. Eines meiner Forschungsgebiete wurde das Recht im Dritten Reich, und hier ist besonders augenfällig, wie Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in eine Lebenswirklichkeit zusammenschießen. Flucht ist hier nicht die Beschäftigung mit der Vergangenheit, sondern gerade die entschlossene Konzentration auf Gegenwart und Zukunft, die blind ist für das Erbe der Vergangenheit, von dem wir geprägt sind und mit dem wir leben müssen. (S.172)

So which theory did Lagos believe in? The relativist or the universalist?" "He did not seem to think there was much of a difference. In the end, they are both somewhat mystical. Lagos believed that both schools of thought had essentially arrived at the same place by different lines of reasoning." "But it seems to me there is a key difference," Hiro says. "The universalists think that we are determined by the prepatterned structure of our brains -- the pathways in the cortex. The relativists don't believe that we have any limits." "Lagos modified the strict Chomskyan theory by supposing that learning a language is like blowing code into PROMs -- an analogy that I cannot interpret." "The analogy is clear. PROMs are Programmable Read-Only Memory chips," Hiro says. "When they come from the factory, they have no content. Once and only once, you can place information into those chips and then freeze it -- the information, the software, becomes frozen into the chip -- it transmutes into hardware. After you have blown the code into the PROMs, you can read it out, but you can't write to them anymore. So Lagos was trying to say that the newborn human brain has no structure -- as the relativists would have it -- and that as the child learns a language, the developing brain structures itself accordingly, the language gets 'blown into the hardware and becomes a permanent part of the brain's deep structure -- as the universalists would have it." "Yes. This was his interpretation." "Okay. So when he talked about Enki being a real person with magical powers, what he meant was that Enki somehow understood the connection between language and the brain, knew how to manipulate it. The same way that a hacker, knowing the secrets of a computer system, can write code to control it -- digital namshubs?" "Lagos said that Enki had the ability to ascend into the universe of language and see it before his eyes. Much as humans go into the Metaverse. That gave him power to create nam-shubs. And nam-shubs had the power to alter the functioning of the brain and of the body." "Why isn't anyone doing this kind of thing nowadays? Why aren't there any namshubs in English?" "Not all languages are the same, as Steiner points out. Some languages are better at metaphor than others. Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Chinese lend themselves to word play and have achieved a lasting grip on reality: Palestine had Qiryat Sefer, the 'City of the Letter,' and Syria had Byblos, the 'Town of the Book.' By contrast other civilizations seem 'speechless' or at least, as may have been the case in Egypt, not entirely cognizant of the creative and transformational powers of language. Lagos believed that Sumerian was an extraordinarily powerful language -- at least it was in Sumer five thousand years ago." "A language that lent itself to Enki's neurolinguistic hacking." "Early linguists, as well as the Kabbalists, believed in a fictional language called the tongue of Eden, the language of Adam. It enabled all men to understand each other, to communicate without misunderstanding. It was the language of the Logos, the moment when God created the world by speaking a word. In the tongue of Eden, naming a thing was the same as creating it. To quote Steiner again, 'Our speech interposes itself between apprehension and truth like a dusty pane or warped mirror. The tongue of Eden was like a flawless glass; a light of total understanding streamed through it. Thus Babel was a second Fall.' And Isaac the Blind, an early Kabbalist, said that, to quote Gershom Scholem's translation, 'The speech of men is connected with divine speech and all language whether heavenly or human derives from one source: the Divine Name.' The practical Kabbalists, the sorcerers, bore the title Ba'al Shem, meaning 'master of the divine name.'" "The machine language of the world," Hiro says.

3.335: Narrated Ata bin Yasar: I met `Abdullah bin `Amr bin Al-`As and asked him, "Tell me about the description of Allah's Apostle which is mentioned in Torah (i.e. Old Testament.") He replied, 'Yes. By Allah, he is described in Torah with some of the qualities attributed to him in the Qur'an as follows: "O Prophet ! We have sent you as a witness (for Allah's True religion) And a giver of glad tidings (to the faithful believers), And a warner (to the unbelievers) And guardian of the illiterates. You are My slave and My messenger (i.e. Apostle). I have named you "Al-Mutawakkil" (who depends upon Allah). You are neither discourteous, harsh Nor a noisemaker in the markets And you do not do evil to those Who do evil to you, but you deal With them with forgiveness and kindness. Allah will not let him (the Prophet) Die till he makes straight the crooked people by making them say: "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah," With which will be opened blind eyes And deaf ears and enveloped hearts.

Israel’s constant drone surveillance over Gaza also impressed President Vladimir Putin. Moscow needed reliable surveillance drones after it lost many planes during its war in 2008 against Georgia in South Ossetia. Tbilisi had used Israeli drones, and years later Moscow decided to follow suit. Having seen Israeli operations over Gaza, Russia licensed the Israeli Aerospace Industries Searcher II, renamed “Forpost” by its new owners, and it became a key asset in Russian support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.33 Israel trained Russian pilots to operate the drones. Russia and Israel maintained a close relationship during the Syrian civil war despite the former supporting Assad and the latter worrying about the growing presence of Russian allies Iran and Hizbollah in the country. This led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (and Naftali Bennett) to routinely attack Iranian and Syrian military positions in Syria to stop the transfer of weapons to Hizbollah. However, Moscow usually turned a blind eye to these attacks, assisted by a de-escalation hotline between the two governments.

Er stand einen Moment und sah auf den offenen Körper unter den weißen Tüchern. Das grelle Licht machte die Tücher noch weißer, wie frischer Schnee, unter dem der rote Krater der klaffenden Wunde gähnte. Kate Hegström, vierunddreißig Jahre alt, kapriziös, schmal, braun, trainiert, voll von Willen zum Leben – zum Tode verurteilt durch den neblig unsichtbaren Griff, der ihre Zellen zerstört hatte. Er beugte sich wieder über den Körper. „Wir müssen ja noch –“ Das Kind. In diesem zerfallenden Körper wuchs ja noch blind ein tappendes Leben heran. Verurteilt mit ihm. Noch fressend, saugend, gierig, nichts als Trieb zum Wachsen, irgendetwas, das einmal spielen wollte in Gärten, das irgendetwas werden wollte, Ingenieur, Priester, Soldat, Mörder, Mensch, etwas, das leben, leiden, glücklich sein wollte und zerbrechen – vorsichtig ging das Instrument die unsichtbare Wand entlang – fand den Widerstand, brach ihn behutsam, brachte ihn heraus – vorbei. Vorbei mit all dem unbewußten Kreisen, vorbei mit dem ungelebten Atem, Jubel, Klage, Wachsen, Werden. Nichts mehr als etwas totes, bleiches Fleisch und etwas gerinnendes Blut.

COULD IT BE B12 DEFICIENCY? The neurological symptoms of B12 deficiency that occur in young and middle-aged people are very similar to those in older people. They include the following: • Numbness, tingling, or burning sensations of the hands, feet, extremities, or truncal area, often misdiagnosed as diabetic neuropathy or chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (CIDP) • Tremor, often misdiagnosed as essential tremor or pre-Parkinson’s disease • Muscle weakness, paresthesias, and paralysis, sometimes attributed to Guillain-Barré syndrome • Pain, fatigue, and debility, often labeled as “chronic fatigue syndrome” • “Shaky leg” syndrome (leg trembling) • Confusion and mental fogginess, often misdiagnosed as early-onset dementia • Unsteadiness, dizziness, and paresthesias, often misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis • Weakness of extremities, clumsiness, muscle cramps, twitching, or foot drop, often misdiagnosed as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) • Psychiatric symptoms, such as depression or psychosis (covered in greater length in the next chapter) • Visual disturbances, vision loss, or blindness In contrast, a doctor ignorant about the effects of B12 deficiency can destroy a patient’s life. The

Suggested Reading Nuha al-Radi, Baghdad Diaries Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin Jane Austen, Emma, Mansfield Park, and Pride and Prejudice Saul Bellow, The Dean’s December and More Die of Heartbreak Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland Joseph Conrad, Under Western Eyes Henry Fielding, Shamela and Tom Jones Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank Henry James, The Ambassadors, Daisy Miller, and Washington Square Franz Kafka, In the Penal Colony and The Trial Katherine Kressman Taylor, Address Unknown Herman Melville, The Confidence Man Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, Invitation to a Beheading, and Pnin Sarah Orne Jewett, The Country of the Pointed Firs Iraj Pezeshkzad, My Uncle Napoleon Diane Ravitch, The Language Police Julie Salamon, The Net of Dreams Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis Scheherazade, A Thousand and One Nights F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby W. G. Sebald, The Emigrants Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries Joseph Skvorecky, The Engineer of Human Souls Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Italo Svevo, Confessions of Zeno Peter Taylor, A Summons to Memphis Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups and St. Maybe Mario Vargas Llosa, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter Reading

Als Berthe vraagt of ze ergens trots op is aarzelt ze even en zegt dan dat ze jaren geleden, in dat strafkamertje, waar ze dus inderdaad vaak zat, wat ze eigenlijk prettig vond omdat dan niemand zich met haar bemoeide, dat ze, toen ze nog echt een kind was, probeerde op haar handen te staan met haar voeten tegen de muur, bijna zo lang als het Misearatur duurde en dat dat lukte en dat het haar voor het eerst een ongekend gevoel van vrijheid gaf en dat ze toen, dat ze zich toen afvroeg wat er nog meer kon zijn dat haar vrijheid gaf, maar dat ze dit aan niemand heeft verteld omdat op je handen staan toch niet echt nodig wordt gevonden en ook niet gepast, dus het is iets wat niemand weet. Een wolk haalt het groene veldje licht en de rode toef op het bureau weg. Berthe vraagt of ze het nog steeds kan, op haar handen staan, en ze zegt dat ze het al wel drie jaar niet meer heeft gedaan en dat ze nu ook een stuk langer is geworden en Berthe vraagt of ze het voor haar alleen toch nog een keer wil doen, en hoewel het zo lang geleden is en nog nooit iemand heeft gekeken en het vast niet meer goed gaat als iemand naar haar kijkt terwijl ze het doet, omdat alles altijd het beste gaat als niemand kijkt, zegt ze toe, omdat het voor Berthe is en voor niemand anders, ze wil graag iets doen voor Berthe alleen, iets waar Berthe haar om vraagt, daarom probeet ze het, met haar lijf dat zoveel langer is geworden en haar borsten die last hebben van de zwaartekracht, het gaat vijf keer mis en vijf keer zegt ze: Ziet-u-wel-ik-kan-het-niet-meer-en-vroeger-kon-ik-het en de zesde keer staat ze daar op haar handen met haar voeten tegen een blinde wand aan en zegt ze in één teug: Misereatur-mei-omnipotens-Deus-et-dimittat-mihi-omnia-peccata-mea-liberet-me-ab-omni-malo-salvet-et-confirmet-in-omni-opere-bono-et-perducat-me-ad-vitam-aeternam-amen, waarna ze haar voeten weer naar de vloer laat vallen.

As explained above, those who believe in the theory of evolution think that a few atoms and molecules thrown into a huge vat could produce thinking, reasoning professors and university students; such scientists as Einstein and Galileo; such artists as Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra and Luciano Pavarotti; as well as antelopes, lemon trees, and carnations. Moreover, as the scientists and professors who believe in this nonsense are educated people, it is quite justifiable to speak of this theory as "the most potent spell in history." Never before has any other belief or idea so taken away peoples' powers of reason, refused to allow them to think intelligently and logically, and hidden the truth from them as if they had been blindfolded. This is an even worse and unbelievable blindness than the totem worship in some parts of Africa, the people of Saba worshipping the Sun, the tribe of Prophet Ibrahim (as) worshipping idols they had made with their own hands, or the people of Prophet Musa (as) worshipping the Golden Calf. In fact, Allah has pointed to this lack of reason in the Qur'an. In many verses, He reveals that some peoples' minds will be closed and that they will be powerless to see the truth. Some of these verses are as follows: As for those who do not believe, it makes no difference to them whether you warn them or do not warn them, they will not believe. Allah has sealed up their hearts and hearing and over their eyes is a blindfold. They will have a terrible punishment. (Surat al-Baqara, 6-7) … They have hearts with which they do not understand. They have eyes with which they do not see. They have ears with which they do not hear. Such people are like cattle. No, they are even further astray! They are the unaware. (Surat al-A‘raf, 179) Even if We opened up to them a door into heaven, and they spent the day ascending through it, they would only say: "Our eyesight is befuddled! Or rather we have been put under a spell!" (Surat al-Hijr, 14-15)

Never go in blind. Don’t move until you know everything about where you are going. Leith Mushtaq, senior Al Jazeera cameraman

You are my home. You’ve been leading me there all along, calling me there, and I was too blind to see that was where I belonged. Too afraid to accept it. Too afraid to believe in it. Too afraid to trust in myself.

It is worth stating clearly and unambiguously what official U.S. government spokespersons have not: For years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for Al Qaeda; and for years, Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this problem.

Het begon met het uitbroeden van vogeleieren. Kosten noch moeite sparend liet vader uit Hamburg, uit Nederland, uit Afrikaanse zoologische stations bevruchte vogeleieren komen, die hij door reusachtige Belgische kloeken liet uitbroeden. Ook voor mij was dat een buitengewoon interessant bedrijf - die kuikentjes, ware wangedrochten in vorm en kleur, die zich uit hun ei pikten. In die monsters met grote, grillige snavels, die meteen na de geboorte onder vraatzuchtig gesis uit de afgrond van hun kelen werden opengesperd, in die salamanders met tere, naakte bochellijven, kon je onmogelijk de toekomstige pauwen, fazanten, auerhoenders en condors herkennen. In mandjes met watten gezet tilde dit drakegebroed zijn blinde, met vlies overtrokken koppen op dunne halzen op en kwekte onhoorbaar uit zijn stomme kelen. Met een groen voorschoot liep vader langs de planken heen en weer, als een tuinman langs zijn cactuskassen, en lokte ze uit het niets, die blinde, van leven pulserende blaasjes, die hulpeloze buikjes die de buitenwereld alleen in de vorm van voer ervoeren, die uitwassen van leven die tastend naar het licht kropen. En toen deze kiemen van leven een paar weken later naar het licht waren opengebarsten, stroomden de kamers vol met bont rumoer, het flikkerende gekwetter van hun nieuwe bewoners. Ze zetten zich op de gordijnlijsten, de randen van de kasten, nestelden zich in het gewas van de tinnen takken en arabesken van de veelarmige hanglampen.

Het eerste wat ik moest leren was altijd kaarsrecht te lopen en tegelijk mijn linkerhand losjes op mijn buik te houden in de hoop dat die hand en niet mijn gezicht de klap opvangt bij de botsing met een obstakel dat buiten bereik van mijn stok blijft, een uitstekend muurtje, een lantaarnpaal, een open raam of deur. Het schijnt dat de huid van ons voorhoofd speciale hypergevoelige sensoren heeft om de omgeving te 'scannen'. Dat zou verklaren waarom mijn kin telkens op mijn borst zakt, mijn voorhoofd vooruitgestoken als een voelspriet. Mijn stok helpt me om weer rechtop te lopen.

Und ich weiß jetzt, Sofia, daß, wer kräftig und stark ist an Geist und Verstand, daß der auch der Beherrscher der andern ist! Wer viel wagt, der ist nach ihrer Anschauung auch im Recht. Wer der Masse dreist entgegentritt, der gilt ihnen als Gesetzgeber, und wer mehr als alle andern wagt, der hat auch das allergrößte Recht! So ist das bisher gewesen, und so wird das immer sein! Man muß blind sein, um das nicht einzusehen!

Teachers must not be too severe, and students must not be bashful. According to Luqmân, a dignifi ed quiet on the part of scholars makes people willing to learn. Loquaciousness repels them. On the value of asking questions in order to gain knowledge: “Put questions like a fool, and store up information like a genius.” Six verses ascribed to Ibn al- Arâbî. Another verse, elsewhere ascribed to Bashshâr b. Burd, which runs: The cure of blindness (ignorance) is prolonged questioning. Blindness materializes through prolonged silence in the state of ignorance.

Among the conventional adab anthologies, we encounter a somewhat different organization of the traditional material in the Kitâb Adab ad- dunyâ wa-d-dîn of al-Mâwardî (d. 450/1058).84 The five large chapters of the work deal with 1. the excellence of the intellect and intelligence and the blameworthiness of instinctive desire and blind prejudice (hawâ); 2. the âdâb of knowledge; 3. the âdâb of religion (dealing mainly with the negative aspects of the material world); 4. the âdâb of this world; and 5. the âdâb of the soul. As the plural âdâb indicates, the various ways in which intellectual, religious, practical/material, and spiritual/ethical behavior is to be practised are illustrated by preferably brief and aphoristic statements in prose and, quite often, in verse. As is to be expected, the chapter on knowledge shows no systematic arrangement. It starts out with strong expressions of praise for knowledge and the appropriate Qur- ânic citations and statements by the Prophet and early Muslim authorities. Evidence is presented for the superiority of knowledge over ignorance. The impossibility of attaining complete knowledge is explained, and the need to acquire knowledge of all kinds wherever possible is stressed. The relationship between knowledge and material possessions is explored in the usual manner. It is recommended that the process of studying begin at an early age. Knowledge is dif- cult to acquire. Again, the prevalence of ignorance is discussed. The objectionable character of using knowledge for ulterior purposes comes in for customary mention. There are sayings explaining the best methods of study and instruction, the qualities students ought to possess, the need for long and strenuous study, and the drawbacks of forgetfulness. Then, we read remarks about handwriting, about the usually bad handwriting of scholars, and about their constantly being engaged in writing. Remarks on the qualifi cations of students, the hadîth that “good questions are one half of knowledge,” and sayings about the character qualities of scholars complete the part of the work devoted to knowledge. Its predominantly secular outlook is indicated by the fact that knowledge here continues to precede the discussion of religion and ethics. The basic role conceded to the intellect with respect to both intellectual/educational and religious/ ethical activity is formally acknowledged by placing the chapter on it at the beginning, as was also the case in the work of al-Marzubânî.

«¡Oh!, sí, señora— pensaba—. Ya sabemos que tiene usted un sin fin de perfecciones . ¿A qué cacarearlo tanto...? Poco falta para que lo canten los ciegos. Si estuviéramos como usted, entre personas decentes, y bien casaditas con el hombre que nos gusta, y teniendo todas las necesidades satisfechas, seríamos lo mismo. Sí, señora; yo sería lo que es usted si estuviera donde usted está... Vaya, que el mérito no es tan del otro jueves, ni hay motivo para tanto bombo y platillo. Y si no, venga usted a mi puesto, al puesto que tuve desde que me engañó aquel, y entonces veríamos las perfecciones que nos sacaba la mona esta». "Oh yes, señora," she thought. "We all know about your endless perfectionist. Why brag about them so much? In a little while, even the blind will be singing your praises. If we lived like you, around decent people and married to the man we liked, and had all our basic needs taken care of, we'd be the same. Yes, I'd be like you if I could be in your place. So your virtues aren't anything out of this world, and there's no need for tooting your horn so much. And if you don't think I'm right, come take my place, the place I've had since he tricked me, and then we'd see what all your perfection looks like. Translation: Agnes Moncy Gullón

Sie begriff nicht, wie sie als junge Frau angesichts der gewaltsamen historischen Ereignisse der damaligen Zeit nur so blind hatte sein können, obwohl das Geschehen doch praktisch durch ihr eigenes Wohnzimmer gefegt war.

The People of the United States are still living with the consequences of the last time their president acted upon his internal religious beliefs instead of the external truth.  George Bush deeply believed “he was called by God to lead the nation” and that he was “an instrument of Providence.”  Bush said, “Events aren’t moved by blind change and chance ... [but] by the hand of a just and faithful God.”  Bush started an illegal and unjustified war in Iraq, which has cost the American People a trillion dollars, thousands of lives and untold suffering because “God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did.

Ik ben een herinneraar, een ziener van het verleden, wie mij waarlijk afbeeldde zou dat moeten doen met ogen als stenen, blinde doppen als bij Griekse beelden, de blik naar binnen gericht. Ik ben een geboren terugschouwer; nergens komen mijn talenten zo tot hun recht als in het smeulende landschap dat is geweest.

The Messenger of Allah ( SAWW ) said: ‘When Allah created Adam and Eve, they strutted through paradise and said: ‘Who are better than we?’ At that moment they noticed an image of a girl like they had never seen before; from this girl came an illuminating light so bright that it almost blinded the eyes. They said: ‘O Lord, what is this?’ He answered: ‘This is the image of Fatima, the mistress of your women descendants.’ Adam asked: ‘What is this crown on her head?’ Allah said “She is the Queen of Heaven”. Whom I have created 2000 years ( 7,30,000,000 years of our earthly time ) before you.

شيء ما يقول لي إنّني ضائع مثل طائر الغطّاس لا أحد يعتقد أنّه موجوداً

Al tended the bar at night. He’d been in the merchant marine and ate with a fat clunky thumb holding down his plate, as if he were afraid the whole place might pitch and yaw and send his dinner flying. He was dwarfish and looked like an abandoned sculpture, a forgotten intention. His upper body was a slablike mass, a plinth upon which his head rested; he had a chiseled nose and jaw, a hack-job scar of a mouth; his hands were thick and stubby, more like paws than anything prehensile. Sitting back behind the bar, smoking Pall Malls, he seemed petrified, the current shape of his body achieved by erosion, his face cut by clumsy strokes and blows. His eyes, though, were soft and blue, always wet and weepy with rheum, and when you looked at Al, you had the disorienting sense of something trapped, something fluid and human caught inside the gray stone vessel of his gargoyle body, gazing out through those eyes. He was my only real neighbor. At closing he’d collect the glasses, wipe down the bottles, shut the blinds, and go to sleep on the bar. In the morning he’d fold his blankets and stow them away in a cardboard box.

مثل سمكة مسكينة ملفوفة بجريدة هنغارية: فهي أولًا ميّتة، وثانيًا لا تفهم الهنغاريّة

Molech’s signature achievement was his tophet altars where worshippers “passed their children through the fire.” They were usually bronze statues of himself with a bull’s head, seated with outstretched arms to place the child over the flames. It was so bold and brilliant that Ba’al had stolen his idea and used it for his own altars. The muscle-bound brute didn’t have an original thought in his puny little skull. Molech made himself invisible to his worshippers, as the Watcher gods typically did in these latter days. In primeval days, the days of Noah, they had walked amongst men and engaged in the open. It was almost as if the growth of knowledge and technology had the deleterious effect on humans of blinding them more and more to the spiritual world around them. It was just as well. The gods could achieve things through hiding that they could not through visible means.

Thou seekest Lailâ. Yet she manifesteth herself within thee. Thou deemest her to be elsewhere, but elsewhere existeth not. That is a madness, well-known to lovers. So be on your guard, for otherness is the epitome of separation. Seest thou not, how her beauty enfoldeth thee. She disappeareth only if thou refusest part of thee. Come close to me, thou sayst to her, to her who is thine All. And when she loveth thee, she leadeth thee to thyself. Bliss ineffable is the meeting with her. No one reacheth her, who knoweth not essence without form. I have dissimulated about her, After I had truly displayed her through my veil. I hid her from myself, with the garment of mine own existence, And, out of jealousy, I hid her from the envier. Dazzling beauty! Should the light of thy countenance Touch the eyes of a blind man, he would see each particle of dust. She is adorned with every grace pertaining unto beauty. And wherever she appeareth, she is desired by those who love. (Diwân)

Richard Kay Richard Kay became friends with Diana, Princess of Wales, through his job as royal correspondent for London’s Daily Mail. After her separation in 1992, he used his knowledge to give a penetrating and unique insight into Diana’s troubled life, and they remained friends until the end. Richard is now diary editor or the Daily Mail and lives in London with his wife and three children. Over the years, I saw her at her happiest and in her darkest moments. There were moments of confusion and despair when I believed Diana was being driven by the incredible pressures made on her almost to the point of destruction. She talked of being strengthened by events, and anyone could see how the bride of twenty had grown into a mature woman, but I never found her strong. She was as unsure of herself at her death as when I first talked to her on that airplane, and she wanted reassurance about the role she was creating for herself. In private, she was a completely different person form the manicured clotheshorse that the public’s insatiable demand for icons had created. She was natural and witty and did a wonderful impression of the Queen. This was the person, she told me, that she would have been all the time if she hadn’t married into the world’s most famous family. What she hated most of all was being called “manipulative” and privately railed against those who used the word to describe her. “They don’t even know me,” she would say bitterly, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her apartment in Kensington Palace and pouring tea from a china pot. It was this blindness, as she saw it, to what she really was that led her seriously to consider living in another country where she hoped she would be understood. The idea first emerged in her mind about three years before her death. “I’ve got to find a place where I can have peace of mind,” she said to me. She considered France, because I was near enough to stay in close touch with William and Harry. She thought of America because she--naively, it must be said--saw it as a country so brimming over with glittery people and celebrities that she would be able to “disappear.” She also thought of South Africa, where her brother, Charles, made a home, and even Australia, because it was the farthest place she could think of from the seat of her unhappiness. But that would have separated her form her sons. Everyone said she would go anywhere, do anything, to have her picture taken, but in my view the truth was completely different. A good day for her was one where her picture was not taken and the paparazzi photographers did not pursue her and clamber over her car. “Why are they so obsessed with me?” she would ask me. I would try to explain, but I never felt she fully understood. Millions of women dreamed of changing places with her, but the Princess that I knew yearned for the ordinary humdrum routine of their lives. “They don’t know how lucky they are,” she would say. On Saturday, just before she was joined by Dodi Al Fayed for their last fateful dinner at the Ritz in Pairs, she told me how fed up she was being compared with Camilla. “It’s all so meaningless,” she said. She didn’t say--she never said--whether she thought Charles and Camilla should marry. Then, knowing that as a journalist I often work at weekends, she said to me, “Unplug your phone and get a good night’s sleep.

DIE NACHT KEERDE DE DOOD TERUG naar Hirifjell. Het was duidelijk wie hij kwam halen, want zoveel keus had hij niet. Ik was drieëntwintig, en als ik later terugdacht aan die zomer, besefte ik dat de dood niet altijd een blinde, gruwelijke moordenaar is. Soms laat hij sleutels achter voor hij vertrekt. Maar

Ze gaat lichttherapie doen, zegt ze, want ze is depressief. Ik vraag zit je ooit buiten. Nee, nooit. Maar nu gaat ze onder gekleurde lampjes liggen, want het kan toch niet zo zijn dat al die lichttherapeuten met hun jarenlange expertise in het laten knipperen van lampjes niet op kunnen boksen tegen de zon. Die mensen leren toch niet voor niks met lampjes knipperen. Ze weten precies waar die depressie met zijn mergelgrotoogjes zich in het brein heeft verstopt, en de vleermuis van zijn iris schrikt op als het peperdure regenbooglicht naar binnen straalt. Lichttherapie. Dat deed ik vroeger in een tent, met een zaklamp. Maar die Chinese zaklampen tegenwoordig, daar maak je zo een ooievaar blind mee. Geef mij dus maar de zon, of de wattenpeertjes van de wolken, waarom hebben de depressies geen rechten?

As Jefferson wrote in a letter to Charles Yancey: “The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe.” In the age of our Founders, this human impulse to demand the right of co-creating shared wisdom accounted for the ferocity with which the states demanded protection for free access to the printing press, freedom of assembly, freedom to petition the government, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech. General George Washington, in a speech to officers of the army in 1783, said, “If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” But the twentieth century brought its own bitter lessons. The new and incredibly powerful electronic media that began to replace the printing press—first radio and film and then television—were used to indoctrinate millions of Germans, Austrians, Italians, Russians, Japanese, Chinese, and others with elaborate abstract ideologies that made many of them deaf, blind, and numb to the systematic leading of tens of millions of their fellow human beings “to the slaughter.

A 2006 Senate Report on the intelligence gathered about Iraq before the war also concluded, “Postwar information indicates that Saddam Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi and that the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi.

Als hätte er gerade etwas entdeckt, was er längst hätte wissen müssen, murmelte er darauf traurig, Aus diesem Material sind wir gemacht, zur Hälfte aus Gleichgültigkeit und zur Hälfte aus Schlechtigkeit.

Salih turned a blind eye to the jihadis flooding into Yemen in the months after unification in early 1990.

Christian values are the problem. Hell will be filled with people who were avidly committed to Christian values. Christian values cannot save anyone and never will. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not a Christian value, and a comfortability with Christian values can blind sinners to their need for the gospel.

Das moralische Gewissen, das von so vielen ungerührt verletzt und von ebenso vielen verschmäht wird, gibt es und hat es immer gegeben, es ist keine Erfindung der Philosophen aus grauer Vorzeit des Quartärs, als die Seele noch kaum mehr war als eine verschwommene Idee. Im Laufe der Zeit, des Zusammenelebens und der genetischen Veränderungen haben wir das Gewissen schließlich in die Farbe des Blutes und das Salz der Tränen getan, und als sei das noch nicht genug, haben wir aus den Augen eine Art nach innen gerichteter Spiegel gemacht, mit dem Ergbenis, dass sie häufig genau das direkt durchblicken lassen, was wir mit Worten hatten verbergen wollen.

Life and its offerings are a Divine Trust. Everything that we think belongs to us does not. The selfhood labels of “I” and “me” and “mine” are ephemeral and can engender spiritual opacity. By giving and sharing we live by the Trust. By withholding and amassing we live outside of the Trust and diminish “ourselves”. Knowledge based on the Truth must inspire humbleness, humility and gratitude. That which inspires arrogance is ignorance, caused by the heart’s blindness.  Any pretensions of self-sufficiency on the part of man are false, any arrogance is misguided, and any existence outside of God’s Will is an illusion: Have you ever considered that [seed] which you emit? Is it you who create it—or are We the source of its creation?[352]

Op deze dingen hadden we geen greep. We konden denken dat onze wereld alles omvatte, we konden druk bezig zijn met onze eigen dingen hier beneden aan de oever, rondrijden met onze auto's, elkaar opbellen en met elkaar praten, bij elkaar op bezoek gaan, eten en drinken, binnenzitten en ons laten overspoelen door opvattingen en meningen en de lotgevallen van hen die op het tv-scherm verschijnen, in die wonderlijke halfkunstmatige symbiose waarin we leefden, en ons steeds dieper, jaar in jaar uit dieper in slaap laten sussen met het idee dat dat alles was, maar als we dan onze blik naar boven richtten en dit zagen, was de enige mogelijke gedachte die van ongrijpbaarheid en onmacht, want hoe klein en beperkt was dat waarin we ons in slaap lieten sussen eigenlijk niet? O, zeker, de drama's die we zagen waren groots, de beelden die we in ons opnamen subliem en soms zelf apocalyptisch, alleen, kom nou toch, slaven, welk aandeel hadden we daar eigenlijk in? Geen. Maar de sterren blinken boven ons, de zon schijnt, het gras groeit en de aarde, ja, de aarde, die slokt alle leven op en wist alle sporen, spuwt nieuw leven uit in een cascade aan ledematen en ogen, bladeren en nagels, strootjes en staarten, wangen en bont, schors en ingewanden om het vervolgens weer op te slokken. En wat we nooit helemaal begrijpen of niet willen begrijpen, is dat dit buiten ons om gebeurt, dat we daar zelf geen deel aan hebben, dat wij slechts datgene zijn wat groeit en sterft, blind als de golven in de zee.

Amman’s own file on the state sponsorship of al-Zarqawi’s terrorist activities during the lead-up to the Iraq War stood in marked contrast to what Powell had presented earlier. It wasn’t Baghdad America should have been looking at, the Jordanians said; it was Tehran. A high-level GID source told the Atlantic magazine in 2006: “We know Zarqawi better than he knows himself. And I can assure you that he never had any links to Saddam. Iran is quite a different matter. The Iranians have a policy: they want to control Iraq. And part of this policy has been to support Zarqawi, tactically but not strategically. . . .In the beginning they gave him automatic weapons, uniforms, military equipment, when he was with the army of Ansar al-Islam. Now they essentially just turn a blind eye to his activities, and to those of al-Qaeda generally. The Iranians see Iraq as a fight against the Americans, and overall, they’ll get rid of Zarqawi and all of his people once the Americans are out.

She will blind everyone with bright light to cover the truth ...

Einen größeren Betrug als all die Märchen um Liebe gibt es nicht. Liebe ist gefährlich. Liebe ist blind. Liebe ist unbesiegbar. Nur trifft sie leider häufig nicht die Richtigen, da Liebe unter Geschmacksverirrungen leidet und ein Handicap hat, wie man es heutzutage wohl höflich umschreibt. So sieht es aus. Die Tussi, die für euer Liebesglück zuständig ist, hat eine so verdammt miese Erfolgsquote, dass ihr von jedem anderen euer Geld zurückverlangen oder ihn verklagen würdet.

I was blind and I missed the scene, I was deaf and I missed the dialogue. But I was cursed with a tongue that could speak.

Invocation of Ya Mu’min is an antidote for hypocrisy. It is a remedy for those who only give lip service to their faith or who trust in Allah but lack fullness of heart. And it is also an antidote for fanaticism or what is sometimes called blind faith. It shares the same root as al-Muhaimin (7) and may be combined with it in recitation.

Bin ich blind?", schwebte Wills leicht gereizte Stimme durch die Dunkelheit. "Ich werde alles andere als erfreut sein, falls du mich geblendet haben solltest, Henry.

With pain equal to death, with death itself, they had bought their lives and were born anew. Today, how could he let family and famine betray this divine gift that had joined their fates? How had the woman so blinded him from seeing his foul deed for what it was? If not for her, he would not have forgotten to fulfill his pledge to Tanit. If not for her, the curse would not have fallen on him—the curse that blinded him from seeing what he was doing. If not for her, his son would never have come into this world to shackle his neck and hands and feet with chains stronger than iron. This son had not just shackled limbs, but had paralyzed his mind and cloaked his heart. Sons may be the security of fathers—but they are also their undoing. For those who love, life exists only in death. You cannot hold the heart of the beloved without having first lost your own. Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, from the Couplets

They have created a man – no, a Frankenstein’s monster – and branded it with his name before setting it loose. Standing there, shoulders sagging, in the Law Courts, in Cardiff, in Bilad al-Welsh, he feels the blows of their lies like a man shot with arrows. They are blind to Mahmood Hussein Mattan and all his real manifestations: the tireless stoker, the poker shark, the elegant wanderer, the love-starved husband, the soft-hearted father.

You’re just an unfortunate stranger who got caught up in things that are beyond his understanding, greater than the tangible world he touches. There is a thin veil that blinds your eyes to the things that happen right under your nose, things you cannot glimpse. But everything will be revealed to you soon.

Man fragt mich oft, was Literatur bewirken kann. Das ist, als würde man einen Arzt fragen, was Medizin bewirken kann. Je weiter man kommt, desto mehr vermisst man unsere Ohnmacht. Diese Ohnmacht quält uns, frisst uns auf. Man schreibt blind, ohne zu verstehen und ohne dass irgendwas erklärbar wäre.