“
she is the noor of my eyes and the sultan of my heart.
”
”
Khaled Hosseini (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
“
No Difference
Small as a peanut,
Big as a giant,
We're all the same size
When we turn off the light.
Rich as a sultan,
Poor as a mite,
We're all worth the same
When we turn off the light.
Red, black or orange,
Yellow or white,
We all look the same
When we turn off the light.
So maybe the way,
To make everything right
Is for god to just reach out
And turn off the light!
”
”
Shel Silverstein
“
I don't care if your dad is the Sultan of Brunei. You happened to be born into a privileged family. What you do with that truth is completely up to you. I'm here because I want to be with you. But if I didn't, all the money in the world wouldn't have changed my feelings for you.
”
”
Nicholas Sparks (The Last Song)
“
Wake! For the Sun, who scatter'd into flight
The Stars before him from the Field of Night,
Drives Night along with them from Heav'n,
and strikes
The Sultan's Turret with a Shaft of Light
”
”
Omar Khayyám (The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam)
“
I will use a flower petal for paper,
And write you the sweetest letter,
You are the sultan of my heart,
Sultan of my heart.
”
”
Khaled Hosseini (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
“
أحياناً، لابدّ من أن ينفطر قلبك يا بني حتّي تزهر روحك
”
”
Elif Shafak (L'Architecte du sultan)
“
Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But from that same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
O Sultan, my master, if my clothes are ripped and torn it is because your dogs with claws are allowed to tear me.
”
”
نزار قباني
“
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light
”
”
Omar Khayyám (Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám)
“
Dalam perjalanannya dengan kuda berlangsung berhari-hari, setelah rehat, beliau membaca buku-buku ilmiah yang dibawanya. Membaca, bergaul dengan ahli-ahli ilmu pengetahuan adalah matlamat penting dalam program hidup Sultan Salahuddin al-Ayubi.
”
”
Syed Hussein Alatas (Cita Sempurna Warisan Sejarah)
“
In modern politics, even the leader of the free world needs help from the sultan of Facebookistan.
”
”
Rebecca MacKinnon
“
..........books are yours,
Within whose silent chambers treasure lies
Preserved from age to age; more precious far
Than that accumulated store of gold
And orient gems, which, for a day of need,
The Sultan hides deep in ancestral tombs.
These hoards of truth you can unlock at will:
”
”
William Wordsworth
“
She could burn Sultans to the ground with me inside, and I’d die happily, knowing she was queen of the ashes.
”
”
Emily McIntire (Twisted (Never After, #4))
“
We will go out into the world and plant gardens and orchards to the horizons, we will build roads through the mountains and across the deserts, and terrace the mountains and irrigate the deserts until there will be garden everywhere, and plenty for all, and there will be no more empires or kingdoms, no more caliphs, sultans, emirs, khans, or zamindars, no more kings or queens or princes, no more quadis or mullahs or ulema, no more slavery and no more usury, no more property and no more taxes, no more rich and no more poor, no killing or maiming or torture or execution, no more jailers and no more prisoners, no more generals, soldiers, armies or navies, no more patriarchy, no more caste, no more hunger, no more suffering than what life brings us for being born and having to die, and then we will see for the first time what kind of creatures we really are.
”
”
Kim Stanley Robinson (The Years of Rice and Salt)
“
Oh sky, without me, do not change,
Oh moon, without me, do not shine;
Oh earth, without me, do not grow,
Oh time, without me, do not go.
Others give you the name of Love,
And me the sultan of that love.
Higher than such illusions,
Oh, you cannot go, without me.
”
”
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi (Love: The Joy That Wounds: The Love Poems of Rumi)
“
Sen aşk ikliminde sultan, sen güzellik şahikasında dolunay, sen vefa göğünde hilâl. Biz bir bakışının dilencisi...
”
”
İskender Pala (Ayine)
“
A piece of bread,
some fresh water,
the shadow of a tree and your eyes, my beloved.
No sultan is happier than me,
no beggar more sad.
”
”
Omar Khayyám
“
God, thought Ross, it does work, and unfairly; but I want her, not any other, not the most beautiful eighteen-year-old damsel born out of a sea-shell, not the most seductive houri of any sultan's harem; I want her with her familiar gestures and her shining smile and her scarred knees, and I know she wants me in just the same way, and if there's any happiness more complete than this I don't know it and am not sure I even want it.
”
”
Winston Graham (The Black Moon (Poldark, #5))
“
I had just interrupted one of the Sultan's councils to decide the outcome of the ceasefire and the fate of our whole country, with a dead duck.
I wondered if this was what would cost me my head.
”
”
Alwyn Hamilton (Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2))
“
Not to every young girl is it given to enter the harem of the Sultan of Turkey and return to her homeland a virgin.
”
”
Dorothy Dunnett (The Ringed Castle (The Lymond Chronicles, #5))
“
I did everything. Everything I could possibly do," Zafira gasped out. "Why? Why wasn't it enough?"
Lana pulled her to her chest, and somehow, the tears fell faster, harder. She was supposed to be the stronger one. The one to hold them together.
"The world has no right sitting on your shoulders, yet you've given it more than you will ever owe," Lana whispered. "You've done for it what a sultan would require a throne, a crown, and a thousand men to accomplish.
”
”
Hafsah Faizal (We Free the Stars (Sands of Arawiya, #2))
“
Struggle is the meaning of life; defeat or victory is in the hands of God. But struggle itself is man’s duty and should be his joy.
”
”
Aga Khan IV
“
Portugal é muito mais do que história e belos edifícios, é uma forma de viver única e uma cultura única.
”
”
Joseph Sultan
“
The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.
”
”
Sultan bin Salman Al-Saud
“
You know the sultans used to light their garden parties with turtles? They'd put candles on their backs and let them wander around. Hundreds of them.
”
”
Joseph Kanon (Istanbul Passage)
“
The truth is I had no idea what I was doing when it came to you, Amani. I tried to leave you in Dustwalk because I didn't want to drag you into my brother's war. I came back for you because I didn't want to see you die at the hands of my other brother. But either way, I was bound to wind up doing one or the other. Just depended on which one." His hand came up like he was going to reach for me but dropped to his side instead. "I was glad in Sazi when I saw you'd gone because it meant you'd escaped on your own path, and I was glad when you took the compass because it gave me a reason to go after you. And yes, I lied to keep you out of Izman because I was afraid someone would know what you were and you'd get snapped up and sold to the Sultan. And I steered you toward Dassama figuring there was a chance I might be able to deliver you to the sea and get you out of this country before it killed you.
”
”
Alwyn Hamilton (Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1))
“
If I am not master of my life, not sultan of my own being, then no man's logic and no man's ecstatic fits may force me to find less silly my impossibly silly position: that of God's slave; no, not his slave even, but just a match which is aimlessly struck and then blown out by some inquisitive child, the terror of his toys.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Despair)
“
The problem with Christians is they aren't as good as Jesus. But thank God most Muslims are better than Muhammad.
”
”
Wafa Sultan
“
Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn
”
”
Herman Melville
“
Through study and learning they earn the pleasure of princes-
What comes of such learning?
Butter never rises from boiling sour milk.
Speak bird! What do you yearn by pecking newly sprouted grain?
Nursing one broken heart, Bahu, is equal to the worship of many years.
”
”
Sultan Bahu
“
I sat taller, to suppress my impatience. It was infuriating, this waiting. I was thirty-seven years old. And like a child, an infant, really, I was at the mercy of others. Hour after hour of my life was spent waiting.
”
”
Rosie Sultan (Helen Keller in Love)
“
Mosques are plenty, churches are plenty, graveyards are plenty, but morals and whiskey are scarce. The Koran does not permit Mohammedans to drink. Their natural instincts do not permit them to be moral. They say the Sultan has eight hundred wives. This almost amounts to bigamy. It makes our cheeks burn with shame to see such a thing permitted here in Turkey. We do not mind it so much in Salt Lake, however.
”
”
Mark Twain (The Innocents Abroad)
“
At a time when she was engaged to Stilton Cheesewright, I remember recording in the archives that she was tall and willowy with a terrific profile and luxuriant platinum blond-hair, the sort of girl who might, as far as looks were concerned, have been the star unit of the harem of one of the better-class sultans.
”
”
P.G. Wodehouse (Jeeves and the Tie That Binds (Jeeves, #14))
“
آمن بالحجر ولكن إياك أن تضربني به
”
”
Wafa Sultan
“
And this time, the Sultan had given us an advantage - the only thing that was truly invincible. Not an immortal creature. But an idea. A legend. A story.
”
”
Alwyn Hamilton (Traitor to the Throne (Rebel of the Sands, #2))
“
He knew Mehmed would build something truly amazing. He knew that Constantinople needed to fall for Mehmed to hold on to his empire. He knew that Mehmed was the greatest sultan his people had ever known. But, like his love for Mehmed, it was no longer simple.
Radu had seen what it took to be great, and he never again wanted to be part of something bigger than himself.
”
”
Kiersten White (Now I Rise (And I Darken Series, #2))
“
Perhaps one day someone from a distant land will listen to this story of mine. Isn't this what lies behind the desire to be inscribed in the pages of a book? Isn't it just for the sake of this delight that sultans and viziers proffer bags of gold to have their histories written?
”
”
Orhan Pamuk (My Name Is Red)
“
I snorted. ‘For a great sultan who is lord and ruler of all that he surveys, his English is lamentably poor. He can’t even spell England properly.’
Still holding the note, Mr Ascham looked up at me. ‘Is that so? Tell me, Bess, do you speak his language? Any Arabic or Turkish-Arabic?’
‘You know that I do not.’
‘Then however lamentable his English may be, he still speaks your language while you cannot speak his. To me, this gives him a considerable advantage over you. Always pause before you criticise, and never unduly criticise one who has made an effort at something you yourself have not even attempted.
”
”
Matthew Reilly (The Tournament)
“
I love Wallachia. It belongs to me, and I belong to it. It is my country, and it should always be mine, and I hate any king or sultan or god or prophet that proclaims anyone else has any right to it.
”
”
Kiersten White (And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1))
“
...en can yakıcı sözler alelade yerlerde ayaküstü söylenir.
”
”
Sema Kaygusuz (Sultan ve Şair)
“
The song is an unvarnished love shout, an implorement tinged with...anger? Something like anger, but the anger of a philosoher, the anger of a pot. An anger directed at the transience of the world, at its heartbreaking beauty that collides constantly with our awareness of the fact that everything gets taken away, that we're being shown marvels but reminded always that they don't belong to us. They're sultans' treasures; we're lucky, we're expected to feel lucky to have been invited to see them at all.
”
”
Michael Cunningham (The Snow Queen)
“
Aurangzeb’s contemporaries included such kings as Charles II of England, Louis XIV of France, and Sultan Suleiman II of the Ottoman Empire. No one asserts that these historical figures were ‘good rulers’ under present-day norms because it makes little sense to assess the past by contemporary criteria. The aim of historical study is something else entirely.
”
”
Audrey Truschke (Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth)
“
In my judgment, my buildings are considerably less likely to burn to the ground during one of your visits if you are disoriented from being treated like a sultan.
”
”
Jim Butcher (White Night (The Dresden Files, #9))
“
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.
”
”
Omar Khayyám (The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)
“
Ultimately it was the East India Company, not the Marathas or the Sultans of Mysore, that the financiers across India decided to back.
”
”
William Dalrymple (The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire)
“
Je compare ton cœur à une ville où les justes et les méchants vivent pêle-mêle. Tu es le sultan de cette ville, et ton vizir est la raison.
”
”
Saadi (بوستان سعدی)
“
It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted…secretly, it was being dictated instead by the needs of technology…by a conspiracy between human beings and techniques, by something that needed the energy-burst of war, crying, “Money be damned, the very life of [insert name of Nation] is at stake,” but meaning, most likely, dawn is nearly here, I need my night’s blood, my funding, funding, ahh more, more…The real crises were crises of allocation and priority, not among firms—it was only staged to look that way—but among the different Technologies, Plastics, Electronics, Aircraft, and their needs which are understood only by the ruling elite…
Yes but Technology only responds (how often this argument has been iterated, dogged, humorless as a Gaussian reduction, among the younger Schwarzkommando especially), “All very well to talk about having a monster by the tail, but do you think we’d’ve had the Rocket if someone, some specific somebody with a name and a penis hadn’t wanted to chuck a ton of Amatol 300 miles and blow up a block full of civilians? Go ahead, capitalize the T on technology, deify it if it’ll make you feel less responsible—but it puts you in with the neutered, brother, in with the eunuchs keeping the harem of our stolen Earth for the numb and joyless hardons of human sultans, human elite with no right at all to be where they are—”
We have to look for power sources here, and distribution networks we were never taught, routes of power our teachers never imagined, or were encouraged to avoid…we have to find meters whose scales are unknown in the world, draw our own schematics, getting feedback, making connections, reducing the error, trying to learn the real function…zeroing in on what incalculable plot? Up here, on the surface, coal-tars, hydrogenation, synthesis were always phony, dummy functions to hide the real, the planetary mission yes perhaps centuries in the unrolling…this ruinous plant, waiting for its Kabbalists and new alchemists to discover the Key, teach the mysteries to others…
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow)
“
Car tout bourgeois, dans l'échauffement de sa jeunesse, ne fût-ce qu'un jour, une minute, s'est cru capable d'immenses passions, de hautes entreprises. Le plus médiocre libertin. a rêvé des sultanes ; chaque notaire porte en soi les débris d'un poète.
”
”
Gustave Flaubert
“
The Hindus hatred of the Mussalmans did not make sense to me. The Muslims had conquered Hindustan. Why hadn’t our gods saved us from them? There was that Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni who had invaded Hindustan seventeen, times—not once or twice but seventeen times. He had destroyed the temple of Chakraswamy at Thanesar and nothing happened to him. Then Somnath. They said that even the sea prostrated itself twice every twenty-four hours to touch the feet of Somnath. But even the sea did not rise to save Somnathji from Mahmud.
”
”
Khushwant Singh (Delhi: A Novel)
“
If a holy man eats half his loaf, he will give the other half to a beggar. But if a king conquers all the world, he will still seek another world to conquer. —SAADI, PERSIAN POET
”
”
Abraham Eraly (The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate)
“
Take your time in everything, until you feel the pull within yourself. Do not let yourself be guided by fear, or even by desire. And certainly not by the will of others.... Like the moon and the tides, the human heart has many phases. Wait for them. They will not be rushed.
”
”
The Sultan's Seal (Kamil Pasha, #1)
“
The four borders of the Taj Mahal are designed to be identical, as if there were a mirror situated on one side, though one can never tell on which one. Stone reflected in the water. God reflected in human beings. Love reflected in heartbreak. Truth reflected in stories. We live, toil and die under the same invisible dome. Rich and poor, Mohammedan and baptized, free and slave, man and woman, Sultan and mahout, master and apprentice … I have come to believe that if there is one shape that reaches out to all of us, it is the dome. That is where all the distinctions disappear and every single sound, whether of joy or sorrow, merges into one huge silence of all-encompassing love. When I think of this world in such a way, I feel dazed and disoriented, and cannot tell any longer where the future begins and the past ends; where the West falls and the East rises.
”
”
Elif Shafak (The Architect's Apprentice)
“
Hatred, Omeir sees, is contagious, spreading through the ranks like a disease. Already, three weeks into the siege, some of the men fight no longer for God or the sultan or plunder but out of a fearful rage. Kill them all. Get this over with.
”
”
Anthony Doerr (Cloud Cuckoo Land)
“
Title 'Yikin heykellerimi'
->'Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me'
O nation
I am Kemal Mustafa
If my thoughts and beliefs are not of this day and age
If my wisdom isn't still the most authentic mentor
Then let my tongue cleave to the roof of my palate
I apoligize
Forget everything I said
Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me
If freedom isn’t still the supreme value
If you’d rather have slaves stay chained
Forget everything I said
Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me
If you see no sense in living a civilized life
If you want to be sent back in time to the middle ages and wish to put a crown on the head of a man who spits into the face of art
Forget everything I said
Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me
If the pain of war violence was not enough
If peace at home, peace in the world has no meaning
If to be awarded requires an arms race
Forget everything I said
Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me
If you miss the fez and the veil and prefer to light the night
If you’re still hoping to find healing from a dervish, a sheik or an amulet
Forget everything I said
Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me
If you say women should not be equal to men and should be covered in black sheets in order to flee from the wrath of bigots
If you say you don’t want to see our women and daughters to get an education just because you believe this is their fate
Forget everything I said
Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me
If freedom and democracy is too much for you to handle
If you have a longing for the sultan of the Sultanate and are still not able to determine the significance of being a nation
Be servants, stay on the path of religion and wait for şeyhülislam to lay down the law for you
Forget everything I said
Destroy and shatter the statues you have built of me
And LEAVE ME ALONE…
-Musafa Kemal Atatürk
”
”
Suleyman Apaydin
“
There would have been a lake. There would have been an arbor in flame-flower. There would have been nature studies—a tiger pursuing a bird of paradise, a choking snake sheathing whole the flayed trunk of a shoat. There would have been a sultan, his face expressing great agony (belied, as it were, by his molding caress), helping a callypygean slave child to climb a column of onyx. There would have been those luminous globules of gonadal glow that travel up the opalescent sides of juke boxes. There would have been all kinds of camp activities on the part of the intermediate group, Canoeing, Coranting, Combing Curls in the lakeside sun. There would have been poplars, apples, a suburban Sunday. There would have been a fire opal dissolving within a ripple-ringed pool, a last throb, a last dab of color stinging red, smarting pink, a sigh, a wincing child.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
“
a saint with the heart of a devil, or a fiend with the soul of a saint.
”
”
Abraham Eraly (The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate)
“
No money in our jackets and our jeans are torn,
Your hands are cold but your lips are warm.
”
”
Mark Knopfler (Dire Straits: "Sultans of Swing" -- The Very Best Of)
“
My glance fell upon a beautiful flower;
the universe turned around her.
— Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent
”
”
P.J. Parker (Roxelana & Suleyman)
“
The Buddha embraced an often overlooked truism: nothing lasts—including us. We and everyone we love will die. Fame fizzles, beauty fades, continents shift. Pharaohs are swallowed by emperors, who fall to sultans, kings, kaisers, and presidents—and it all plays out against the backdrop of an infinite universe in which our bodies are made up of atoms from the very first exploding stars. We may know this intellectually, but on an emotional level we seem to be hardwired for denial.
”
”
Dan Harris (10% Happier)
“
...the Despot is Master only as long as he is the strongest, and as soon as he can be driven out he cannot protest against violence. The uprising that ends by strangling or dethroning a Sultan is as Lawful an act as those by which he disposed, the day before, of the lives and goods of his Subjects.
”
”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“
Why does a young Muslim, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up in a bus full of innocent passengers? In our countries, religion is the sole source of education, and this is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched. He was not born a terrorist, and did not become a terrorist overnight. Islamic teachings played a role in weaving his ideological fabric, thread by thread, and did not allow other sources—I am referring to scientific sources—to play a role. It was these teachings that distorted this terrorist, and killed his humanity; it was not [the terrorist] who distorted the religious teachings, and misunderstood them, as some ignorant people claim. When you recite to a child still in his early years the verse 'They will be killed or crucified, or have their hands and feet on alternative sides cut off,' regardless of this verse's interpretation, and regardless of the reasons it was conveyed, or its time, you have made the first step towards creating a great terrorist.
”
”
Wafa Sultan
“
After a few moments, her eyes became as glossy as his and she also spoke in complete nonsense. “Who are you?” Mother Goose asked the caterpillar. “What I am,” he said. “Where are you?” she said. “Here with you,” the caterpillar said. “And if this were the Castle of Hearts?” Mother Goose asked. “We’d be there,” he said. “But where?” she asked. “In the castle,” he said. “Ah, so there would be here,” she said, and they nodded together. “Here would be what’s left.” The caterpillar nodded. “Am I what’s left?” she asked. “You’re what’s right, of course.” “But what’s right is wrong.” “And what’s left is right.” “I understand completely,” Mother Goose said. “Thank you so much, Mr. Caterpillar.” The others stared at them absolutely dumbfounded. Mother Goose hopped down from the mushroom and moseyed back to them. “The caterpillar said to go back to the fork and take a left,” she said. “He did?” Alex asked. “It’s all about the keywords,” Mother Goose said. “I used to be friends with a sultan who enjoyed the hookah, too. Lester, I’m going to need you to carry me the rest of the way – I’m awfully tired.
”
”
Chris Colfer (Beyond the Kingdoms (The Land of Stories #4))
“
his eldest daughter, who was his delight and pride, Scheherazade said to him, "Father, I have a favour to ask of you. Will you grant it to me?" "I can refuse you nothing," replied he, "that is just and reasonable." "Then listen," said Scheherazade. "I am determined to stop this barbarous practice of the Sultan's, and to deliver the girls and mothers from the awful fate that hangs over them." "It would be an excellent thing to do," returned the grand-vizir,
”
”
Anonymous (The Arabian Nights Entertainments)
“
There is no growth without discomfort.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans)
“
People had lived by the river in Swat for 3,000 years and always seen it as our lifeline, not a threat, and our valley as a haven from the outside world. Now we had become “the valley of sorrows,” said my cousin Sultan Rome. First the earthquake, then the Taliban, then the military operation, and now, just as we were starting to rebuild, devastating floods arrived to wash all our work away.
”
”
Malala Yousafzai (I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban)
“
THERE CAN BE FEW delights in the world as pleasant as a Siracusan spring. The fragrance of the lemon, orange, apricot, almond and peach blossoms pervade the city, enriched by the moist, salty sea breezes. On
”
”
Tariq Ali (The Islam Quintet: Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, The Book of Saladin, The Stone Woman, A Sultan in Palermo, and Night of the Golden Butterfly)
“
My well-beloved was stripped. Knowing my whim,
She wore her tinkling gems, but naught besides:
And showed such pride as, while her luck betides,
A sultan's favoured slave may show to him.
When it lets off its lively, crackling sound,
This blazing blend of metal crossed with stone,
Gives me an ecstasy I've only known
Where league of sound and luster can be found.
She let herself be loved: then, drowsy-eyed,
Smiled down from her high couch in languid ease.
My love was deep and gentle as the seas
And rose to her as to a cliff the tide.
My own approval of each dreamy pose,
Like a tamed tiger, cunningly she sighted:
And candour, with lubricity united,
Gave piquancy to every one she chose.
Her limbs and hips, burnished with changing lustres,
Before my eyes clairvoyant and serene,
Swanned themselves, undulating in their sheen;
Her breasts and belly, of my vine and clusters,
Like evil angels rose, my fancy twitting,
To kill the peace which over me she'd thrown,
And to disturb her from the crystal throne
Where, calm and solitary, she was sitting.
So swerved her pelvis that, in one design,
Antiope's white rump it seemed to graft
To a boy's torso, merging fore and aft.
The talc on her brown tan seemed half-divine.
The lamp resigned its dying flame. Within,
The hearth alone lit up the darkened air,
And every time it sighed a crimson flare
It drowned in blood that amber-coloured skin
”
”
Charles Baudelaire
“
Philippa drew a deep breath, and found relief in expelling it. ‘Do you think,’ she said carefully, ‘that someone is going to be goaded into doing something soon?’ There was a long pause. ‘I think,’ said Jerott at length, equally carefully, ‘that someone is going to the court of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and someone else is going to Flaw Valleys, England, to Mother.’ Which summed it up, Philippa supposed, with regret.
”
”
Dorothy Dunnett (Pawn in Frankincense (The Lymond Chronicles, #4))
“
Before you ask others to respect your beliefs, you have to respect their beliefs. Do you respect others beliefs when you recite and blast from the top of your mosque’s minarets these verses? Do you practice the freedom of speech? Why don’t you evaluate (criticize) these Koranic verses?
”
”
Wafa Sultan
“
For a capitalist system to work, the state had to protect, not regulate or interfere with, free markets. Both for political and religious reasons, this the sultan could not do: The Ottomans had then no idea of the balance of trade. . . . Originated from an age-old tradition in the Middle East, the Ottoman trade policy was that the state had to be concerned above all that the people and craftsmen in the cities in particular would not suffer a shortage of necessities and raw material. Consequently, the imports were always welcomed and encouraged, and exports discouraged.
”
”
Victor Davis Hanson (Carnage & Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise to Western Power)
“
It is the face of rebellion and determination. It does not show age, terror, or ennui. It is frozen in time, in a moment when you took a stand against a man who abused you. It is a mark of rebellion against man’s dominion, even an Ottoman Sultan. What face could be more beautiful, Kucuk?
”
”
Linda Lafferty (The Drowning Guard: A Novel of the Ottoman Empire)
“
The room contains a few dozen living human bodies, each one a big sack of guts and fluids so highly compressed that it will squirt for a few yards when pierced. Each one is built around an armature of 206 bones connected to each other by notoriously fault-prone joints that are given to obnoxious creaking, grinding, and popping noises when they are in other than pristine condition. This structure is draped with throbbing steak, inflated with clenching air sacks, and pierced by a Gordian sewer filled with burbling acid and compressed gas and asquirt with vile enzymes and solvents produced by the many dark, gamy nuggets of genetically programmed meat strung along its length. Slugs of dissolving food are forced down this sloppy labyrinth by serialized convulsions, decaying into gas, liquid, and solid matter which must all be regularly vented to the outside world lest the owner go toxic and drop dead. Spherical, gel-packed cameras swivel in mucus-greased ball joints. Infinite phalanxes of cilia beat back invading particles, encapsulate them in goo for later disposal. In each body a centrally located muscle flails away at an eternal, circulating torrent of pressurized gravy. And yet, despite all of this, not one of these bodies makes a single sound at any time during the sultan’s speech.
”
”
Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)
“
In the Ottoman times, there were itinerant storytellers called "meddah. " They would go to coffee houses, where they would tell a story in front of an audience, often improvising. With each new person in the story, the meddah would change his voice, impersonating that character. Everybody could go and listen, you know ordinary people, even the sultan, Muslims and non-Muslims. Stories cut across all boundaries. Like "The Tales of Nasreddin Hodja," which were very popular throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans and Asia. Today, stories continue to transcend borders
”
”
Elif Shafak
“
Each spring for a period of weeks the imperial gardens were filled with prize tulips (Turkish, Dutch, Iranian), all of them shown to their best advantage. Tulips whose petals had flexed wide were held shut with fine threads hand-tied. Most of the bulbs had been grown in place, but these were supplemented by thousands of cut stems held in glass bottles; the scale of the display was further compounded by mirrors placed strategically around the garden. Each variety was marked with a label made from silver filigree. In place of every fourth flower a candle, its wick trimmed to tulip height, was set into the ground. Songbirds in gilded cages supplied the music, and hundreds of giant tortoises carrying candles on their backs lumbered through the gardens, further illuminating the display. All the guests were required to dress in colors that flattered those of the tulips. At the appointed moment a cannon sounded, the doors to the harem were flung open, and the sultan's mistresses stepped into the garden led by eunuchs bearing torches. The whole scene was repeated every night for as long as the tulips were in bloom, for as long as Sultan Ahmed managed to cling to his throne.
”
”
Michael Pollan (The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World)
“
Bil ki Cafer, ben geleceği görüyorum diyen, her zulmü kendisine hak görecektir.!
”
”
Reha Çamuroğlu (Sultan Selahaddin El Kürdi)
“
Behave," he gritted at her as if he was in control of this, of her, of his own wild response, "and this will be your reward. Disobey me, and this will be nothing but a memory.
”
”
Caitlin Crews (Undone by the Sultan's Touch (Harlequin Presents))
“
if he conquers, he obtains power and good fortune. If he perishes, he obtains paradise and bliss.’ The outcome of the battle therefore did not matter much to him.
”
”
Abraham Eraly (The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate)
“
If we want to
We will become a people, if we want to, when we learn that we are not angels, and that evil is not the prerogative of others
We will become a people when we stop reciting a prayer of thanksgiving to the sacred nation every time a poor man finds something to eat for his dinner
We will become a people when we can sniff out the sultan’s gatekeeper and the sultan without a trial
We will become a people when a poet writes an erotic description of a dancer’s belly
We will become a people when we forget what the tribe tells us, when the individual recognizes the importance of small details
We will become a people when a writer can look up at the stars without saying: ‘Our country is loftier and more beautiful!’
We will become a people when the morality police protect a prostitute from being beaten up in the streets
We will become a people when the Palestinian only remembers his flag on the football pitch, at camel races, and on the day of the Nakba
We will become a people, if we want to, when the singer is allowed to chant a verse of Surat al-Rahman at a mixed wedding reception
We will become a people when we respect the right, and the wrong.
”
”
Mahmoud Darwish (A River Dies of Thirst: Journals)
“
Believe what you want, but I'm darker than the devil, in a porsche 911, sitting on the pedal. Burning through life, living hell on earth, and i hope you reconsider, and know i been a devil since birth.
”
”
Khurram Sultan
“
Eventually they climb sixteen steps into the Gallery of Mineralogy. The guide shows them a gate from Brazil and violet amethysts and a meteorite on a pedestal that he claims is as ancient as the solar system itself. Then he leads them single file down two twisting staircases and along several corridors and stops outside an iron door with a single keyhole. “End of tour,” he says.
A girl says, “But what’s through there?”
“Behind this door is another locked door, slightly smaller.”
“And what’s behind that?”
“A third locked door, smaller yet.”
“What’s behind that?”
“A fourth door, and a fifth, on and on until you reach a thirteenth, a little locked door no bigger than a shoe.”
The children lean forward. “And then?”
“Behind the thirteenth door”—the guide flourishes one of his impossibly wrinkled hands—“is the Sea of Flames.”
Puzzlement. Fidgeting. “Come now. You’ve never heard of the Sea of Flames?”
The children shake their heads. Marie-Laure squints up at the naked bulbs strung in three-yard intervals along the ceiling; each sets a rainbow-colored halo rotating in her vision.
The guide hangs his cane on his wrist and rubs his hands together. “It’s a long story. Do you want to hear a long story?”
They nod.
He clears his throat. “Centuries ago, in the place we now call Borneo, a prince plucked a blue stone from a dry riverbed because he thought it was pretty. But on the way back to his palace, the prince was attacked by men on horseback and stabbed in the heart.”
“Stabbed in the heart?”
“Is this true?”
A boy says, “Hush.”
“The thieves stole his rings, his horse, everything. But because the little blue stone was clenched in his fist, they did not discover it. And the dying prince managed to crawl home. Then he fell unconscious for ten days. On the tenth day, to the amazement of his nurses, he sat up, opened his hand, and there was the stone.
“The sultan’s doctors said it was a miracle, that the prince never should have survived such a violent wound. The nurses said the stone must have healing powers. The sultan’s jewelers said something else: they said the stone was the largest raw diamond anyone had ever seen. Their most gifted stonecutter spent eighty days faceting it, and when he was done, it was a brilliant blue, the blue of tropical seas, but it had a touch of red at its center, like flames inside a drop of water. The sultan had the diamond fitted into a crown for the prince, and it was said that when the young prince sat on his throne and the sun hit him just so, he became so dazzling that visitors could not distinguish his figure from light itself.”
“Are you sure this is true?” asks a girl.
“Hush,” says the boy.
“The stone came to be known as the Sea of Flames. Some believed the prince was a deity, that as long as he kept the stone, he could not be killed. But something strange began to happen: the longer the prince wore his crown, the worse his luck became. In a month, he lost a brother to drowning and a second brother to snakebite. Within six months, his father died of disease. To make matters even worse, the sultan’s scouts announced that a great army was gathering in the east.
"The prince called together his father’s advisers. All said he should prepare for war, all but one, a priest, who said he’d had a dream. In the dream the Goddess of the Earth told him she’d made the Sea of Flames as a gift for her lover, the God of the Sea, and was sending the jewel to him through the river. But when the river dried up, and the prince plucked it out, the goddess became enraged. She cursed the stone and whoever kept it.
”
”
Anthony Doerr (All the Light We Cannot See)
“
No!” Lada shook her head, eyes still wild. “I cannot go in there! If a woman enters the harem complex, she belongs to the sultan!”
Mehmed peered out the window they had climbed through, to make sure their path was clear. “I would not hold you to that, Lada, and—”
“It would not matter! Everyone would know, I would be labeled your concubine, and—”
Radu took her hand, which still hung in the air pointing accusingly at Mehmed, and squeezed it in his own. “And you would be unmarriageable? What a tragedy. I know how dearly you treasured the hope of marrying some minor Ottoman noble, dear sister.”
She finally met his eyes, hers still feverish and frenzied. “But I would be his.”
“I think our Mehmed is smart enough to know he could never claim you. Right?”
Radu’s tone was light, and he turned to Mehmed with a playful smile. Perhaps it was the dimness of the room, or the stress of the night, but Mehmed’s face was clouded with…disappointment? Hurt? Then a tight, false smile took its place, and he nodded. Radu’s own chest felt equally tight with anxiety and fear and a twisting, bitter sense of jealousy.
”
”
Kiersten White (And I Darken (The Conqueror's Saga, #1))
“
The sudden and total disappearance of Mawlana aroused resentment among his disciples and students, some of them becoming highly critical of Hazrat Shams, even threatening him. They believed Hazrat Shams had ruined their spiritual circle and prevented them from listening to Mawlana's sermons. In March of 1246 he left Konya and went to Syria without warning. After he left, Mawlana was grief stricken, secluding himself even more rather than engaging with his disciples and students. He was without a doubt furious with them. Realising the error of their ways, they repeatedly repented before Mawlana. Some months later, news arrived that Hazrat Shams had been seen in Damascus and a letter was sent to him with apologising for the behaviour of these disciples. Hazrat Sultan Walad and a search party were sent to Damascus to invite him back and in April 1247, he made his return. During the return journey, he invited Hazrat Sultan Walad to ride on horseback although he declined, choosing instead to walk alongside him, explaining that as a servant, he could not ride in the presence of such a king. Hazrat Shams was received back with joyous celebration with sama ceremonies being held for several days, and all those that had shown him resentment tearfully asked for his forgiveness. He reserved special praise for Hazrat Sultan Walad for his selflessness, which greatly pleased Mawlana. As he originally had no intention to return to Konya, he most likely would not have returned if Hazrat Sultan Walad had not himself gone to Damascus in search of him. After his return, he and Mawlana Rumi returned to their intense discussions. Referring to the disciples, Hazrat Shams narrates that their new found love for him was motivated only by desperation: “ They felt jealous because they supposed, "If he were not here, Mowlana would be happy with us." Now [that I am back] he belongs to all. They gave it a try and things got worse, and they got no consolation from Mowlana. They lost even what they had, so that even the enmity (hava, against Shams) that had swirled in their heads disappeared. And now they are happy and they show me honor and pray for me. (Maqalat 72) ” Referring to his absence, he explains that he left for the sake of Mawlana Rumi's development: “ I'd go away fifty times for your betterment. My going away is all for the sake of your development. Otherwise it makes no difference to me whether I'm in Anatolia or Syria, at the Kaaba or in Istanbul, except, of course, that separation matures and refines you. (Maqalat 164) ” After a while, by the end of 1247, he was married to Kimia, a young woman who’d grown up in Mawlana Rumi's household. Sadly, Kimia did not live long after the marriage and passed away upon falling ill after a stroll in the garden
”
”
Shams Tabrizi
“
The Russian Revolution is a radical change in history. The abolition of private property has created a new world. You may like it or detest it, but it’s new. Hitler’s socialism was a sham to get a mob of gangsters into power. He’s frozen the German economy just as it was, smashed the labor unions, lengthened the working hours, cut the pay, and kept all the old rich crowd on top, the Krupps and Thyssens, the men who gave him the money to run for office. The big Nazis live like barons, like sultans. The concentration camps are for anybody who still wants the socialist part of National Socialism."
[...]
"I’m sorry. I’m impressed with Hitler’s ability to use socialist prattle when necessary, and then discard it. He uses doctrines as he uses money, to get things done. They’re expendable. He uses racism because that’s the pure distillate of German romantic egotism, just as Lenin used utopian Marxism because it appealed to Russia’s messianic streak. Hitler means to hammer out a united Europe.... He understands them, and he may just succeed. A unified Europe must come. The medieval jigsaw of nations is obsolete. The balance of power is dangerous foolishness in the industrial age. It must all be thrown out. Somebody has to be ruthless enough to do it, since the peoples with their ancient hatreds will never do it themselves. It’s only Napoleon’s original vision, but he was a century ahead of his time.
”
”
Herman Wouk (The Winds of War (The Henry Family, #1))
“
I don't give a damn if you were the featured date du jour of the sultan of Brunei. Get it through your head: You're here under duress,my duress, and the second I can get you across the river, the better I'll like it."
"Even if Winkie wants me?"
"Who the hell is Winkie?"
In answer, her gaze traveled to his crotch.
"Woman," Jake roared, beyond insane, "do you have a death wish? Get in that bed, pull the covers over your head, and go to sleep before I do something we'll both regret.
”
”
Cherry Adair (Kiss and Tell (T-FLAC, #2; Wright Family, #1))
“
Liberalism has been degraded into liberality. Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. The Jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but (what was more important) the system he would not rebel against, the system he would trust. But the new rebel is a sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy)
“
Many things combine to show that Midaq Alley is one of the gems of times gone by and that it once shone forth like a flashing star in the history of Cairo. Which Cairo do I mean? That of the Fatimads, the Mamlukes, or the Sultans? Only God and the archaeologists know the answer to that, but in any case, the alley is certainly an ancient relic and a precious one. How could it be otherwise with its stone-paved surface leading directly to the historic Sanadiqiya Street. And then there is its cafe known as "Kirsha's". Its walls decorated with multicolored arabesques, now crumbling, give off strong odors from the medicines of olden times, smells which have now become the spices and folk-cures of today and tomorrow ...
Although Midaq Alley lives in almost complete isolation from all surrounding activity, it clamors with a distinctive and personal life of its own. Fundamentally and basically, its roots connect with life as a whole and yet, at the same time, it retains a number of the secrets of a world now past.
”
”
Naguib Mahfouz
“
In the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the bed of state in the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out of the quarry, the tunnel of the rope to hold it in its place was slowly carried through the leagues of rock, the slab was slowly raised and fitted in the roof, the rope to the great iron ring. All being made ready with much labour, and the hour come, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night, and the sharpened axe that was to sever the rope from the great iron ring was put into his hand, and he struck with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and the ceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near and afar, that tended to the end had been accomplished, and in an instant the blow was struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me.
”
”
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
“
Walking back across the St-Esprit bridge, to the ghetto I'd instinctively gravitated toward, I mentally erected a more appropriate statue on the square. It would depict an unknown Sephardic Jew, kneeling over a stone tripod covered with crushed cacao beans destined for a cup of chocolate for one of the gentiles of Bayonne.
It would be a symbolic piece, executed in smooth, chocolate-hued marble, and dedicated to all the other forgotten heroes--coffee-drinking Sufi dervishes, peyote-eating Native Americans, Mexican hemp-smokers--who, throughout history, have faced the wrath of all the sultans, drug czars, and Vatican clerics who have resorted to any spurious pretext to squelch one of the most venerable and misunderstood of human drives: the desire to escape, however briefly, everyday consciousness.
”
”
Taras Grescoe (The Devil's Picnic)
“
Kamil thinks to himself that these are eyes that see everything, ravenous eyes. He feels a pang of longing for the omnivorous freedom of a child's appetite for life, not yet disciplined to distinguish raw from cooked, feasting without caring whether life is served at a table or from a tray on the floor.
”
”
The Sultan's Seal (Kamil Pasha, #1)
“
What the Acropolis in Athens looked like, including the Parthenon of the gods, is best told today at the British Museum in London, which houses the marble statuary removed by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to Constantinople in 1801-05, and sold at a knockdown price (only 23 million dollars in our money) to the British Museum a couple of decades later. Although Elgin had or bought the permission of the Turkish sultan then ruling Greece, some contemporaries, including the poet and pro-Greek activist Lord Byron, already denounced the Elgin Marbles as 'pillage.' So the Greek government has claimed since the 1970s, but the British won't return them.
”
”
Norman F. Cantor (Antiquity: The Civilization of the Ancient World)
“
Significantly, most British and French antislavery fervor in the 1860s was directed not at Spain and Portugal, which allowed slavery in their colonies, or at Brazil, with its millions of slaves. Instead, righteous denunciations poured down on a distant, weak, and safely nonwhite target: the so-called Arab slave-traders raiding Africa from the east. In the slave markets of Zanzibar, traders sold their human booty to Arab plantation owners on the island itself, and to other buyers in Persia, Madagascar, and the various sultanates and principalities of the Arabian peninsula. For Europeans, here was an ideal target for disapproval: one “uncivilised” race enslaving another.
”
”
Adam Hochschild (King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa)
“
Given the highly absolutist and extractive Ottoman institutions, the sultan’s hostility to the printing press is easy to understand. Books spread ideas and make the population much harder to control. Some of these ideas may be valuable new ways to increase economic growth, but others may be subversive and challenge the existing political and social status quo. Books also undermine the power of those who control oral knowledge, since they make that knowledge readily available to anyone who can master literacy. This threatened to undermine the existing status quo, where knowledge was controlled by elites. The Ottoman sultans and religious establishment feared the creative destruction that would result.
”
”
Daron Acemoğlu (Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty)
“
This is not true, you give yourself the right to adopt a religion that orders you to kill others, and you say, this is a religion don’t come close to it? There is a difference in the comparison, The Koran is the highest religious and political authority in the Islamic world, but the Danish cartoons are just a passing event in a newspaper that doesn’t represent any religious or political authority in Denmark. When you respect others beliefs, others will be obligated to respect your beliefs. Don’t ask others for what you don’t apply first on yourself.
”
”
Wafa Sultan
“
Most Muslims, if not all of them, will condemn me to death when they read this book. They may not even read it. The title alone may push them to condemn me. That’s how things are with them. They don’t read, or, if they do, they don’t take in what they read. They are much more interested in disagreement than in rapprochement and they are—first and foremost—supremely interested in inducing fear in others with whom they disagree. They may even threaten to condemn you just for reading this book because, in their cruelty, they have learned something about how to control others: Nothing tortures the human spirit more effectively than making someone a prisoner of her own fears.
”
”
Wafa Sultan (A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of Islam)
“
Lastly, to the memory of my beloved niece Mayyada, who cut her life short by committing suicide to escape the hellish marriage imposed upon her under Islamic Sharia Law: May her tragic account be an eternal inspiration to all who are privileged to live in free societies. May her story encourage all those who have been subjugated to tyranny—especially women—to become well informed and to persevere beyond fear and intimidation. And a challenge: To those whose spirits uphold the principles of justice and freedom of speech—May Mayyada’s story, and that of many more whose stories have never been told, embolden you to speak up against the unjust and immoral treatment of women in the Muslim world.
”
”
Wafa Sultan (A God Who Hates: The Courageous Woman Who Inflamed the Muslim World Speaks Out Against the Evils of Islam)
“
Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself; incidentally making use of them for other and more private ends than they were legitimately intended to subserve. That certain sultanism of his brain, which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested; through those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an irresistible dictatorship. For be a man’s intellectual superiority what it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for ever keeps God’s true princes of the Empire from the world’s hustings; and leaves the highest honors that this air can give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass. Such large virtue lurks in these small things when extreme political superstitions invest them, that in some royal instances even to idiot imbecility they have imparted potency. But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown of geographical empire encircles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian herds crouch abased before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the tragic dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in his art, as the one now alluded to.
”
”
Herman Melville (Moby-Dick or, The Whale)
“
Ostap Bender lay in the dvornik's room, which was warm to the point of reeking, and mentally put the finishing touches on two possible career plans.
He could become a polygamist and move peacefully from town to town, dragging behind him a new suitcase full of valuable items he'd picked up from the latest wife. Or he could go the very next day to the Stargorod Children's Commission and offer them the chance to distribute the as-yet unpainted but brilliantly conceived canvas The Bolsheviks Writing a Letter to Chamberlain, based on the artist Repin's popular painting The Zaporozhian Cossacks Writing a Letter to the Turkish Sultan. If it worked out, this option could bring in something along the line of four hundred rubles.
Ostap had thought up both options during his last stay in Moscow. The polygamy option had been born under the influence of the court report from the evening papers, where it was clearly indicated that some polygamist had only gotten two years without strict isolation. Option number two had taken shape in Bender's mind when he was going through the AARR exhibit on a free ticket.
However, both options had their downsides. It was impossible to begin a career as a polygamist without a wondrous, dapple-gray suit. In addition, he needed at least ten rubles for hospitality expenses and seduction. Of course, he could get married in his green campaign uniform as well, because Bender's masculine power and attraction were absolutely irresistible to provincial, marriage-ready Margaritas; but that would be, as Bender liked to say, "Poor-quality goods. Not clean work." It wasn't all smooth sailing for the painting, either. Purely technical difficulties could arise. Would it be proper to paint Comrade Kalinin in a papakha and a white burka, or Comrade Chicherin naked to the waist?
”
”
Ilya Ilf (The Twelve Chairs)
“
prior probability that the sun will rise, since it’s prior to seeing any evidence. It’s not based on counting the number of times the sun has risen on this planet in the past, because you weren’t there to see it; rather, it reflects your a priori beliefs about what will happen, based on your general knowledge of the universe. But now the stars start to fade, so your confidence that the sun does rise on this planet goes up, based on your experience on Earth. Your confidence is now a posterior probability, since it’s after seeing some evidence. The sky begins to lighten, and the posterior probability takes another leap. Finally, a sliver of the sun’s bright disk appears above the horizon and perhaps catches “the Sultan’s turret in a noose of light,” as in the opening verse of the Rubaiyat. Unless you’re hallucinating, it is now certain that the sun will rise. The crucial question is exactly how the posterior probability should evolve as you see more evidence. The answer is Bayes’ theorem. We can think of it in terms of cause and effect. Sunrise causes the stars to fade and the sky to lighten, but the latter is stronger evidence of daybreak, since the stars could fade in the middle of the night due to, say, fog rolling in. So the probability of sunrise should increase more after seeing the sky lighten than after seeing the stars fade. In mathematical notation, we say that P(sunrise | lightening-sky), the conditional probability of sunrise given that the sky is lightening, is greater than P(sunrise | fading-stars), its conditional probability given that the stars are fading. According to Bayes’ theorem, the more likely the effect is given the cause, the more likely the cause is given the effect: if P(lightening-sky | sunrise) is higher than P(fading-stars | sunrise), perhaps because some planets are far enough from their sun that the stars still shine after sunrise, then P(sunrise | lightening sky) is also higher than P(sunrise | fading-stars).
”
”
Pedro Domingos (The Master Algorithm: How the Quest for the Ultimate Learning Machine Will Remake Our World)
“
Now "The Arabian Nights," some of which, but not nearly all, are given in this volume, are only fairy tales of the East. The people of Asia, Arabia, and Persia told them in their own way, not for children, but for grown-up people. There were no novels then, nor any printed books, of course; but there were people whose profession it was to amuse men and women by telling tales. They dressed the fairy stories up, and made the characters good Mahommedans, living in Bagdad or India. The events were often supposed to happen in the reign of the great Caliph, or ruler of the Faithful, Haroun al Raschid, who lived in Bagdad in 786-808 A.D. The vizir who accompanies the Caliph was also a real person of the great family of the Barmecides. He was put to death by the Caliph in a very cruel way, nobody ever knew why. The stories must have been told in their present shape a good long while after the Caliph died, when nobody knew very exactly what had really happened. At last some storyteller thought of writing down the tales, and fixing them into a kind of framework, as if they had all been narrated to a cruel Sultan by his wife. Probably the tales were written down about the time when Edward I. was fighting Robert Bruce. But changes were made in them at different times, and a great deal that is very dull and stupid was put in, and plenty of verses. Neither the verses nor the dull pieces are given in this book.
”
”
Muhsin Mahdi (The Arabian Nights)
“
Sonnet of Human Resources
There is no blue collar, no white collar, just honor.
And honor is defined by character not collar.
There is no CEO, no janitor, just people.
Person's worth lies, not in background, but behavior.
Designation is reference to expertise, not existence.
Respect is earned through rightful action, not label.
Designation without humanity is resignation of humanity,
For all labels without love cause nothing but trouble.
The term human resources is a violation of human rights.
For it designates people as possession of a company.
Computers are resources, staplers are resources, but people,
Aren't resources, but the soul of all company and society.
I'm not saying, you oughta rephrase it all in a civilized way.
But at the very least, it's high time with hierarchy we do away.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Amantes Assemble: 100 Sonnets of Servant Sultans)