“In the traditional Islamic world, the hierarchy of the arts was not based on whether they were "fine" or "industrial" or "minor". It was based upon the effect of art on the soul of the human being.”

“The true test of all the arts, is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind.”

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) English painter, specialising in portraits

“The new art must be based upon science — in particular, upon mathematics, as the most exact, logical, and graphically constructive of the sciences.”

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) German painter, printmaker, mathematician, and theorist

“I have come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

“Ridden with conflicts and lacking the industrial base of communism and nazism, Islamism is nowhere near a danger of the magnitude of those that were faced down in the 20th century.”

John Gray (1948) British philosopher

“By making social hierarchies and the reproduction of these hierarchies appear based upon the hierarchy of ‘gifts’, merits, or skill established and ratified by its sanctions, or, in a word, by converting social hierarchies into academic hierarchies, the educational system fulfils a function of legitimation which is more and more necessary to the perpetuation of the ‘social order’ as the evolution of the power relationship between classes tends more completely to exclude the imposition of a hierarchy based upon the crude and ruthless affirmation of the power relationship.”

Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher

“Islamic state means a state based on justice and democracy and structured upon Islamic rules and laws.”

Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) Religious leader, politician

“Extremist art is non-metaphysical, based on the senses.”

Nick Zedd (1958) American film maker

“Iron and heat are… the supporters, the bases, of the mechanic arts.”

Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot (1796–1832) French physicist, the "father of thermodynamics" (1796–1832)

“My conviction was justified: art, that which lasts, is based on mathematics.”

Jean Metzinger (1883–1956) French painter