“Freedom is a heady thing. To an Iraqi, it is like being awakened from a 30- year nightmare by a blinding blaze of bright white light. When a young man steals a television set from the Ministry of Education, he thinks he is striking a blow against the Ba'ath Party. He has not yet become aware that he is in fact stealing it from a building that now belongs to him and is about to start serving his needs, and not those of his tormentors.”

—  Kanan Makiya

"Thank you, America", New York Post (April 15, 2003)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Freedom is a heady thing. To an Iraqi, it is like being awakened from a 30- year nightmare by a blinding blaze of brigh…" by Kanan Makiya?
Kanan Makiya photo
Kanan Makiya 35
American orientalist 1949

Related quotes

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“2420. He wrongs not an old Man, who steals his Supper from him.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Compare Poor Richard's Almanack (1737) : He that steals the old man's supper, do's him no wrong.
Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

As quoted in Art of Communicating Ideas (1952) by William Joseph Grace, p. 389
Disputed

F. Paul Wilson photo
Neville Goddard photo
James Marsters photo
Vladimir Nabokov photo
Ernst Jünger photo
Orson Scott Card photo
Martin Buber photo

Related topics