Quotes about brother
page 12

Joe Biden photo
Keshub Chunder Sen photo
Truman Capote photo
Philip Roth photo
Colum McCann photo
John McCain photo
Ismail ibn Musa Menk photo

“We all have examinations in life, different types of examinations. And each one has to try very hard. As you know, in a set up where there is a school, or a university, at the end of every semester, trimester or term, you would have some examinations, in order to qualify you to get to the next level. And as you progress in life, the examinations become more and more difficult. And you would know that without working, we don't achieve. We know the common saying, "Whoever works very hard will definitely see the fruit of that particular working." So just like we have people who fail because they did not work hard, or they did not understand that the examination would become more and more difficult as time passes, we also have an issue with the Dīn where, as we progress in life, we will have more and more tests, and they become more and more difficult until we meet with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And this is why the Prophet S. A. W. was told "Worship your Rabb [Lord] until death overtakes you. Worship your Rabb until the end. Right up to the end. Keep on worshiping. Continue. Do not stop, do not pause, do not lose hope. In fact, progress and become stronger and stronger." If you take a look at some of the other verses of the Quran, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala makes mention of Muhammad sallā llāhu 'alay-hi wa-sallam delivering the message. It was not easy. And it was difficult, he faced so many challenges. He continued, and he persevered. Twenty three whole years of nubuwwah. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, when you have, Subhan Allah! Subhan Allah! You know, the achievement that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala granted him, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will grant each person achievement according to his will obviously but also connected to the effort that that particular person makes. If we were to give up suddenly, we would never be able to achieve even Jannah. […] So it's important for us to know that to give up… you don't know how close you are to the end! Imagine a person digging a tunnel, for example, and right when they are near the end they suddenly give up thinking that you know what, I don't know how long this is going to carry on for. Had they carried on for a minute longer they would have broken through! So with us we need to continue, fulfill your Salah, progress, develop. Don't think for a moment that life is going to become any easier. The only thing that will happen is, with the development of the link with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, we become more content, we understand the nature of the world. We understand the nature of the tests of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, so we enjoy going through them in the sense that we are content. We are happy with the decree of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. So my brothers and sisters, not only do I say work hard to achieve here in the Dunyā”

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

and may Allah bless you and grant you success in these examinations – but even in the Akhirah we ask Allah to bless you, to open your doors. To prepare for the Akhirah, it's not an easy task, but with the hope in the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala things will be made easy, and at the same time, with the constant preparation, without giving up hope – never ever giving up, never saying no, never just throwing the towel – by the will of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala we will achieve, and we will achieve great heights.
"Exams in Life - Never Give Up - Mufti Menk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4w4pak66V0, YouTube (2013)
Lectures

Gaio Valerio Catullo photo

“Wandering through many countries and over many seas I come, my brother, to these sorrowful obsequies, to present you with the last guerdon of death, and speak, though in vain, to your silent ashes, since fortune has taken your own self away from me—alas, my brother, so cruelly torn from me! Yet now meanwhile take these offerings, which by the custom of our fathers have been handed down—a sorrowful tribute—for a funeral sacrifice; take them, wet with many tears of a brother, and for ever, my brother, hail and farewell!”
Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus Advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias, Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis Et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem. Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum, Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi, Nunc tamen interea haec prisco quae more parentum Tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias, Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu, Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.

CI, lines 1–10
Sir William Marris's translation:
By many lands and over many a wave
I come, my brother, to your piteous grave,
To bring you the last offering in death
And o'er dumb dust expend an idle breath;
For fate has torn your living self from me,
And snatched you, brother, O, how cruelly!
Yet take these gifts, brought as our fathers bade
For sorrow's tribute to the passing shade;
A brother's tears have wet them o'er and o'er;
And so, my brother, hail, and farewell evermore!
Carmina

Bill Engvall photo
Isaac Rosenberg photo
Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
Michelle Obama photo
Alexander Blok photo

“Grip your gun like a man, brother!
Let's have a crack at Holy Russia,
Mother
Russia
with her big, fat arse!
Freedom, freedom! Down with the cross!”

The Twelve (1918); translation from Jon Stallworthy and Peter France (trans.) The Twelve, and Other Poems (New York: Oxford University Press, 1970) p. 146.

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“So it is in that spirit that I declare this afternoon to the people of Cuba that those who seek refuge here in America will find it. The dedication of America to our traditions as an asylum for the oppressed is going to be upheld. I have directed the Departments of State and Justice and Health, Education, and Welfare to immediately make all the necessary arrangements to permit those in Cuba who seek freedom to make an orderly entry into the United States of America. Our first concern will be with those Cubans who have been separated from their children and their parents and their husbands and their wives and that are now in this country. Our next concern is with those who are imprisoned for political reasons. And I will send to the Congress tomorrow a request for supplementary funds of $12,600,000 to carry forth the commitment that I am making today. I am asking the Department of State to seek through the Swiss government immediately the agreement of the Cuban government in a request to the President of the International Red Cross Committee. The request is for the assistance of the Committee in processing the movement of refugees from Cuba to Miami. Miami will serve as a port of entry and a temporary stopping place for refugees as they settle in other parts of this country. And to all the voluntary agencies in the United States, I appeal for their continuation and expansion of their magnificent work. Their help is needed in the reception and the settlement of those who choose to leave Cuba. The Federal Government will work closely with these agencies in their tasks of charity and brotherhood. I want all the people of this great land of ours to know of the really enormous contribution which the compassionate citizens of Florida have made to humanity and to decency. And all States in this Union can join with Florida now in extending the hand of helpfulness and humanity to our Cuban brothers. The lesson of our times is sharp and clear in this movement of people from one land to another. Once again, it stamps the mark of failure on a regime when many of its citizens voluntarily choose to leave the land of their birth for a more hopeful home in America. The future holds little hope for any government where the present holds no hope for the people. And so we Americans will welcome these Cuban people. For the tides of history run strong, and in another day they can return to their homeland to find it cleansed of terror and free from fear. Over my shoulders here you can see Ellis Island, whose vacant corridors echo today the joyous sound of long ago voices. And today we can all believe that the lamp of this grand old lady is brighter today; and the golden door that she guards gleams more brilliantly in the light of an increased liberty for the people from all the countries of the globe. Thank you very much.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Remarks at the signing of the Immigration Bill (1965)

James K. Morrow photo
John Masefield photo
Hesiod photo
Han-shan photo

“Worry for others— it does no good in the end.
The great Dao, all amid joy, is reborn.
In a joyous state, ruler and subject accord,
In a joyous home, father and son get along.
If brothers increase their joy, the world will flourish.
If husband and wife have joy, it's worthy of song.
What guest and host can bear a lack of joy?
Both high and low, in joy, lose their woe before long.
Ha ha ha.”

Han-shan Chinese monk and poet

Translated by Mary Jacob[citation needed]
It is unlikely that this poem, translated by Mary Jacob, is authored by Han-shan. In comparing it with every poem in the corpus it will be found that there is not a close match. Moreover, neither the language nor the content of this poem is that of Han-shan. Most importantly, this poem does not have the appropriate number of lines for a Han-shan poem. Jacob's poem has 9 lines; there is not a single example of a 9 line poem in all of Han-shan's poetry. All of Han-shan's poems are 4, 8, 10 or 14 lines, with a few that have more than 14. Further, Jacob's poem has an odd number of lines; there is not a single example of a poem with an odd number of lines in all of Han-shan's poetry. Finally, the 9th and final line in Jacob's poem has the words “ha ha ha.” Not a single Han-shan poem has those words as a final line. Perhaps someone is having a joke?
Disputed

Maulana Karenga photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo

“My dear Brother, - I am working like one actually possessed, more than ever I am in a dumb fury of work… Perhaps something will happen to me like what Eug. Delacroix spoke of, "I discovered painting when I had no longer teeth or breath." What I dream of in my best moments is not so much of striking color effects as once more the half tones.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Sept. 1889; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 33 (letter 604)
1880s, 1889

Leonard Cohen photo

“I've seen the future, brother:
it is murder.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"The Future"
The Future (1992)

Christopher Titus photo
Emo Philips photo

“Well, my brother says "hello"! So, hooray for speech therapy.”

Emo Philips (1956) American comedian

E=MO² (1985), A Fine How Ya Do

Tanith Lee photo
Assata Shakur photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Enver Hoxha photo
Roy Sesana photo
Pierre Trudeau photo

“The community of man should be treated in the same way you would treat your community of brothers or fellow citizens.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Part 3, 1974 - 1979 Victory And Defeat, p. 224
Memoirs (1993)

Ossip Zadkine photo
Roger Ebert photo
John Gay photo

“Brother, brother! we are both in the wrong.”

John Gay (1685–1732) English poet and playwright

Act II, scene ii
The Beggar's Opera (1728)

Roger Manganelli photo
Francis Parkman photo
Charles Babbage photo
Abd al-Karim Qasim photo
Chief Seattle photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“The old question as to what shall be done with the negro will have to give place to the greater question “What shall be done with the Mongolian,” and perhaps we shall see raised one still greater, namely, “What will the Mongolian do with both the negro and the white?” Already has the matter taken shape in California and on the Pacific coast generally. Already has California assumed a bitterly unfriendly attitude toward the Chinaman. Already has she driven them from her altars of justice. Already has she stamped them as outcasts and handed them over to popular contempts and vulgar jest. Already are they the constant victims of cruel harshness and brutal violence. Already have our Celtic brothers, never slow to execute the behests of popular prejudice against the weak and defenseless, recognized in the heads of these people, fit targets for their shilalahs. Already, too, are their associations formed in avowed hostility to the Chinese. In all this there is, of course, nothing strange. Repugnance to the presence and influence of foreigners is an ancient feeling among men. It is peculiar to no particular race or nation. It is met with, not only in the conduct of one nation towards another, but in the conduct of the inhabitants of the different parts of the same country, some times of the same city, and even of the same village. 'Lands intersected by a narrow frith abhor each other. Mountains interposed, make enemies of nations'. To the Greek, every man not speaking Greek is a barbarian. To the Jew, everyone not circumcised is a gentile. To the Mohametan, every one not believing in the Prophet is a kaffer.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

William Faulkner photo
Willem Maris photo

“As far as I can remember, it was before my twelfth year that I was sketching cows in the mornings before and afternoons after school, and because my brothers were 4 and 6 years older than me – naturally I got from them my first teachings in drawing and later in painting.”

Willem Maris (1844–1910) Dutch landscape painter of the Hague School (1844-1910)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Willem Maris: Voor zover ik mij herinneren kan, was ik voor mijn twaalfde jaar 's Morgens voor, en 's middags na schooltijd al in de weilanden aan 't teekenen van koeien en daar mijn broers 4 en 6 jaar ouder waren als ik - genoot ik natuurlijk van hen het eerste onderwijs in het teekenen en later in het schilderen.
Quote of Willem Maris, in his letter in 1901; as cited in 'Zó Hollands - Het Hollandse landschap in de Nederlandse kunst sinds 1850', Antoon Erftemeijer https://www.franshalsmuseum.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/zohollands_eindversie_def_1.pdf; Frans Hals museum | De Hallen, Haarlem 2011, p. 36

Helen Keller photo

“The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labour. Surely we must free men and women together before we can free women. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands -- the ownership and control of their lives and livelihood -- are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind are ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease. How can women hope to help themselves while we and our brothers are helpless against the powerful organizations which modern parties represent and which contrive to rule the people? They rule the people because they own the means of physical life, land, and tools, and the nourishers of intellectual life, the press, the church, and the school. You say that the conduct of the woman suffragists is being disgracefully misrepresented by the British press. Here in America the leading newspapers misrepresent in every possible way the struggles of toiling men and women who seek relief. News that reflects ill upon the employers is skillfully concealed -- news of dreadful conditions under which labourers are forced to produce, news of thousands of men maimed in mills and mines and left without compensation, news of famines and strikes, news of thousands of women driven to a life of shame, news of little children compelled to labour before their hands are ready to drop their toys. Only here and there in a small and as yet uninfluential paper is the truth told about the workman and the fearful burdens under which he staggers.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Out of the Dark (1913), To a Woman-Suffragist

Brigham Young photo
KT Tunstall photo
Isadora Duncan photo
Billy Childish photo

“When I was better known than her, she put my name in that tent. I was asked to do Celebrity Big Brother, but why should I? We live in an age where fame is not related to what you do.”

Billy Childish (1959) British musician

Tim Teeman, "The importance of being Childish", http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22876-2475809.html The Times, 2006-12-02
Childish's name is the most prominent in Tracey Emin's Everyone I have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, appliquéd names in a tent (destroyed in the Momart warehouse fire).

Anthony Burgess photo
Thomas Wolfe photo
Jim Belushi photo

“People are always coming up to me and saying, 'I love you, love your work.' And then the next sentence is, 'I loved your brother.' John made people laugh, and laughter is a powerful thing”

Jim Belushi (1954) American actor, comedian, singer, and musician

Source: Rick Kogan. " Belushis: Funny is in their bones: Jim, son Robert and stand-up Kyle Lane team up to create intimate Comedy Bar on Ontario Street http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-10-26/entertainment/ct-ae-1028-kogan-sidewalks-20121026_1_stand-up-comedy-improv-funny-guyThe," in: The Chicago Tribune, October 26, 2012.

Michelle Obama photo

“See, the truth is that if Princeton hadn’t found my brother as a basketball recruit, and if I hadn’t seen that he could succeed on a campus like that, it never would have occurred to me to apply to that school — never. And I know that there are so many kids out there just like me — kids who have a world of potential, but maybe their parents never went to college or maybe they’ve never been encouraged to believe they could succeed there.”

Michelle Obama (1964) lawyer, writer, wife of Barack Obama and former First Lady of the United States

Statements proceeding introduction of husband at College Opportunity Summit (16 January 2014) http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/16/remarks-president-and-first-lady-college-opportunity-summit
2010s

Lyndon LaRouche photo
Graham Greene photo
Henry James photo
Pope John Paul II photo

“Young people of every continent, do not be afraid to be the saints of the new millennium! Be contemplative, love prayer; be coherent with your faith and generous in the service of your brothers and sisters, be active members of the Church and builders of peace.”

Pope John Paul II (1920–2005) 264th Pope of the Catholic Church, saint

Message of the Holy Father to the Youth of the World on the Occasion of the 15th World Youth Day, From the Vatican, 1999

Albrecht Thaer photo
Peter Abelard photo

“St. Jerome, whose heir methinks I am in the endurance of foul slander, says in his letter to Nepotanius: "The apostle says: 'If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.' He no longer seeks to please men, and so is made Christ's servant" (Epist. 2). And again, in his letter to Asella regarding those whom he was falsely accused of loving: "I give thanks to my God that I am worthy to be one whom the world hates" (Epist. 99). And to the monk Heliodorus he writes: "You are wrong, brother, you are wrong if you think there is ever a time when the Christian does not suffer persecution. For our adversary goes about as a roaring lion seeking what he may devour, and do you still think of peace? Nay, he lieth in ambush among the rich."
Inspired by those records and examples, we should endure our persecutions all the more steadfastly the more bitterly they harm us. We should not doubt that even if they are not according to our deserts, at least they serve for the purifying of our soul. And since all things are done in accordance with the divine ordering, let every one of true faith console himself amid all his afflictions with the thought that the great goodness of God permits nothing to be done without reason, and brings to a good end whatsoever may seem to happen wrongfully. Wherefore rightly do all men say: "Thy will be done." And great is the consolation to all lovers of God in the word of the Apostle when he says: "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. viii, 28). The wise man of old had this in mind when he said in his Proverbs: "There shall no evil happen to the just" (Prov. xii, 21). By this he clearly shows that whosoever grows wrathful for any reason against his sufferings has therein departed from the way of the just, because he may not doubt that these things have happened to him by divine dispensation. ///Even such are those who yield to their own rather than to the divine purpose, and with hidden desires resist the spirit which echoes in the words, "Thy will be done," thus placing their own will ahead of the will of God. Farewell.”

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician

Source: Historia Calamitatum (c. 1132), Ch. XV

Henry Adams photo
Fidel Castro photo
James A. Garfield photo
Thomas Carlyle photo

“I do not attempt here to derogate my brother’s reading habits, but merely to indicate the disparity in our interests.”

George Alec Effinger (1947–2002) Novelist, short story writer

Source: What Entropy Means to Me (1972), Chapter 4 “The Song of the Sword” (p. 56).

Syed Ahmed Khan photo

“Then our Musalman brothers, the Pathans, would come out as a swarm of locusts from their mountain valleys, and make rivers of blood to flow from their frontier in the north to the extreme end of Bengal”

Syed Ahmed Khan (1820–1898) Indian educator and politician

Source: Quoted from After a Century it is time to revisit Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s legacy https://www.myind.net/Home/viewArticle/after-a-century-it-is-time-to-revisit-sir-syed-ahmad-khans-legacy Avatans Kumar Jan 27, 2018

David Hunter photo
Viswanathan Anand photo

“I started at the age of six. My elder brother and sister were dabbling a bit, and then I went to my mother and pestered her to teach me as well.”

Viswanathan Anand (1969) Indian chess player

Game of thrones with world chess champion Viswanathan Anand

Ahmad Jannati photo

“May Allah, by the virtue of the Hidden Imam, God will remove the evil of America and Israel from humanity…. I say to those dear people: Oh Iraqi brothers and sisters, America and Israel don't want your heads to remain attached to your bodies.”

Ahmad Jannati (1927) Iranian ayatollah

Friday Sermon In Tehran University By Ayatollah Jannati: America Will Collapse. We Must Be Patient. http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/142.htm June 2004.
America to collapse

Chuck Palahniuk photo
Vālmīki photo
Ann Coulter photo
James Hudson Taylor photo
Edgar Rice Burroughs photo
Robert Jordan photo

“Never kiss a girl whose brothers have knife scars.”

Robert Jordan (1948–2007) American writer

Matrim Cauthon
(15 October 1993)

Ismail ibn Musa Menk photo

“My beloved brothers and sisters. On the globe, several incidents have occurred that make it necessary for us to speak about them, and guide the Muslims in their regard… It's important for us to know that as Muslims, we don't understand what part of Islam these people [terrorists] are following. In fact, we don't even understand what Islam they are following, because Islam is a totally different religion from what these people are practicing… As frustrated as we might be because of what might be happening on Muslim lands, it does not give us the right to go out and hurt people who are not at all involved… If you have a problem with someone, you may report them to the authorities. And then it will handled by the courts. You will either get justice at the courts or sometimes maybe the courts may find someone that you believe is guilty, innocent. In that case, you leave it for the day of judgment, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will be judge. But you do not take it into your own hands, to say now because the court has found this person innocent, and according to me the person is guilty, "Let me harm them, let me kill them, let me hurt them, let me rob from them". That is absolutely incorrect and it is un-Islamic… Two wrongs do not make a right, remember this… If someone has murdered someone else, Subhan Allah, it does not give us the right to murder a third party altogether. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us, and may Allah grant us guidance and ease. It's important we understand this. The world is bleeding today, and people are blaming the Muslims! Because from amongst us, some are being brainwashed. Brainwashed by what? They do not understand verses of the Quran. They don't understand the Asbab al-Nuzul, or reasons of the revelation of the verses of the Quran. They don't understand how to extract rules and regulations from verses of the Quran. They read something, someone shows them something and next thing they are prepared to give up their lives. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala grant us an understanding. We should be giving up our lives striving to earn the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala through obedience, through Salah. Look at Muhammad sallā llāhu 'alay-hi wa-sallam when he went to Ta'if, look at his example. They beat him up personally, physically, he was bleeding and the angels came to him to say "If you want, we can crush these people between the mountains". What did he say? He said "I am sent as a mercy. We don't want that to happen. If they don't accept, perhaps their children will accept."”

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

Patience, Sabr... And we think that the non-Muslims are our enemies – the minute we think that, automatically we will not be able to call them towards Islam. And they will get the wrong image of Islam. My brothers and sisters, Islam, it means peace, it stands for peace, it promotes peace, it teaches peace, and everything that you will achieve is peace. In this world peace, in the next peace, in your grave peace, with your children peace, in your environment peace. That is Islam. Anything that destroys that in any way is not Islam. Remember this.
"Islam Condemns Terrorism - Powerful Reminder - Mufti Ismail Menk" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6O2anxz7CM, YouTube (2015)
Lectures

Lucy Mack Smith photo
Aron Ra photo

“Remember, [in the Bible] it's adultery only if the woman is already married. It doesn't matter if the man is married. If he is, she may just become another one of his wives, and a man can have sex with other women who aren't his wives, and that's not cheating either, as long as they live with him, because a man is also allowed to have concubines, and a concubine is a sort of sexual servant who serves no other purpose and has no claim to your estate. Your wife may not have a claim to your estate either, because when you die your wife may become your brother's sexual property. That's how the Bible defines marriage! The Bible does not prohibit multiple wives or incest either. In fact, both are promoted. However, when your father dies, your mother does not become your wife, and you can't inherit any of his other wives either, and the reason that the Bible gives for that is because that would be like looking up your father's skirt… So, a man can have multiple wives and a collection of personal harlots, but he can also have sex with his slaves, and that's not cheating either. You've heard of friends with benefits? You can call this your property rights. That's the only way that makes sense, because according to the Bible all women are property, and property doesn't have rights. Now, some people equate having sex with slaves to rape, because the slave doesn't have any choice. But, according to the Bible, women don't have any choice anyway, and rape can be a prelude to matrimony; if you're a Bronze Age Israelite and you see some young cutie walking unescorted, if you like her, you want her, you can have her, even if she doesn't want you. Now, if you rape a married woman, that's a death sentence for both of you (because the Bible is stupid like that). But if she's not promised to someone else, and you rape her and you get caught, you have to pay her father fifty shekels of silver and she's yours. He may not want her back after that, even his own child, because an unmarried woman who wasn't a virgin was considered damaged goods back then, so they had this rule that "if you pop it, you buy it." So your victim becomes your bride and you're stuck together forever, and can never get divorced (so be careful who you rape). There's actually a cheaper [and] easier way to get a bride; if a man takes a wife and decides he doesn't like her, if he can prove she wasn't a virgin (or if he can convince other people that was probably not a virgin), she she will be murdered on her father's doorstep because, according to the god of infinite mercy, that's the moral thing to do. But if she can prove that she was a virgin, then she must remain married forever to the man who hates her, because that's divine wisdom too. That unpleasant arrangement for both of you will also cost you a hundred shekels, whereas you can marry your rape victim for half the price. So, if you're a complete loser, and you can't get any woman who appeals to you by the normal way, just rape whoever you like and she's yours forever.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Biblical Family Values https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bldw8X5apnY (July 11, 2015)

Archibald Macleish photo
Frederick William Robertson photo

“Control yourself and no one else
And you will
see the Truth my brother”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"The Truth" (27 January 2008)

Edward Carpenter photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Theodore Dalrymple photo
George Borrow photo
Ismail ibn Musa Menk photo

“Then we have Sūrat al-Sharḥ, also known as al-Inshirāḥ. I need to make mention of this because in it is a lot of comfort for myself and yourselves. We have a problem in life. When we have a problem Allah says, "Don't worry, with that difficulty, there is ease." You will never know what ease is all about unless you've been through difficulty. Those who have a beautiful life, sometimes they are still worried and depressed because they don't know what it is like to have suffered a little bit. So Allah's blessing, he makes us suffer slightly so that when there's a little bit of ease, mashallah. You know, a man who's always driven a Rolls-Royce will never know what it's like to ride a bicycle to work. Two ways of making them ride. One is, the doctor tells you you're about to die, Allahu Akbar, and you need to ride to work. Immediately everything is given up. Why? Because we're worried about dear life. That's why. If you see people – Subhan Allah – I've seen a man who had a carrot, and he was pretending like he's smoking this carrot and nibbling on it. And I told him, I said: "My brother, what made you nibble on this carrot?" He says: "My doctor told me I can't smoke, and a good replacement is a carrot." I said: "Allahu Akbar, you're stuffing your mouth with a carrot because of a doctor, but when Allah told you smoking is bad, then you didn't want to listen…" Allahu Akbar. May Allah make us from amongst those who eat carrots rather than smoking cigarettes. Really. So, my brothers and sisters, it's a reality. Whenever there is a person who has tasted goodness alone, and they don't know what difficulty is about, there comes a time when they do not appreciate what they have. So like I was saying, two ways. One is, Allah snatches it away from you, so you now have nothing. So many people have climbed the peak in terms of materialistic items, and then they've dropped down the mountain. They say it's easier to drop from the top than it is from the bottom. Allahu Akbar. When you arrive at the top, a small movement and you roll down, you're with the avalanche, one time. And when you're at the bottom, they can kick you – if you drop, you stand up again and you're walking – same level, masshalah, it's all about altitude. May Allah protect us. Another thing is, when you drop from the top, greater likelihood of breaking more bones. When you drop from the bottom, "Ah, I might have just hurt my head slightly", just say "Ouch" and carry on. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala protect us and grant us humbleness. So, remember, sometimes Allah wants you to go down, so that you appreciate the bicycle after you had nothing, yet ten years ago you had the Rolls-Royce. May Allah bless us. So Allah says, and I'm sure we know verses, verse number five and six:
فَإِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرً
إِنَّ مَعَ الْعُسْرِ يُسْرًا
"Indeed, with every difficulty [or, with difficulty] there is ease.
And indeed, with the difficulty there is ease."
[…] May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala alleviate the suffering that we are all going through in our own little ways. Remember it's a gift of Allah. To keep you in check sometimes. To keep you calling out to Him. May Allah open our doors.”

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

" Do you have problems in life? Watch This! by Mufti Menk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgp2zbE9Ofg", YouTube (2013)
Lectures

Nathan Bedford Forrest photo
Charles Barkley photo

“The Oklahoma Sooners and the Hornets are the only brothers in town.”

Charles Barkley (1963) American basketball player

At the time of this comment, the NBA team then known as the New Orleans Hornets (now the New Orleans Pelicans) was playing in Oklahoma City following extensive damage to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.
Source: As quoted in "Barkley: Oklahoma a vast wasteland" http://newsok.com/article/1757468 (10 February 2006), by Andrew Gilman, The Oklahoman

Joseph Heller photo
Alauddin Khalji photo
Mahmud of Ghazni photo

“The king, in his zeal to propagate the faith, now marched against the Hindoos of Nagrakote [Nagarkot Kangra], breaking down their idols and razing their temples. The fort, at that time denominated the Fort of Bheem, was closely invested by the Mahomedans, who had first laid waste the country around it with fire and sword.'…'In the year AH 402 (AD 1011), Mahmood resolved on the conquest of Tahnesur [Thanesar (Haryana)], in the kingdom of Hindoostan. It had reached the ears of the king that Tahnesur was held in the same veneration by idolaters, as Mecca by the faithful; that they had there set up a number of idols, the principal of which they called Jugsom, pretending that it had existed ever since the creation. Mahmood having reached Punjab, required, according to the subsisting treaty with Anundpal, that his army should not be molested on its march through his country…'The Raja's brother, with two thousand horse was also sent to meet the army, and to deliver the following message:- "My brother is the subject and tributary of the King, but he begs permission to acquaint his Majesty, that Tahnesur is the principal place of worship of the inhabitants of the country: that if it is required by the religion of Mahmood to subvert the religion of others, he has already acquitted himself of that duty, in the destruction of the temple of Nagrakote. But if he should be pleased to alter his resolution regarding Tahnesur, Anundpal promises that the amount of the revenues of that country shall be annually paid to Mahmood; that a sum shall also be paid to reimburse him for the expense of his expedition, besides which, on his own part he will present him with fifty elephants, and jewels to a considerable amount." Mahmood replied, "The religion of the faithful inculcates the following tenet: That in proportion as the tenets of the prophet are diffused, and his followers exert themselves in the subversion of idolatry, so shall be their reward in heaven; that, therefore, it behoved him, with the assistance of God, to root out the worship of idols from the face of all India. How then should he spare Tahnesur?"… This answer was communicated to the Raja of Dehly, who, resolving to oppose the invaders, sent messengers throughout Hindoostan to acquaint the other rajas that Mahmood, without provocation, was marching with a vast army to destroy Tahnesur, now under his immediate protection. He observed, that if a barrier was not expeditiously raised against this roaring torrent, the country of Hindoostan would be soon overwhelmed, and that it behoved them to unite their forces at Tahnesur, to avert the impending calamity….”

Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030) Sultan of Ghazni

Tarikh-i-Firishta, translated by John Briggs under the title History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, first published in 1829, New Delhi Reprint 1981, Vol. I, pp. 27-37.
Quotes from Muslim medieval histories

Ian McEwan photo

“Nearby, where the main road forked, stood an iron cross on a stone base. As the English couple watched, a mason was cutting in half a dozen fresh names. On the far side of the street, in the deep shadow of a doorway, a youngish woman in black was also watching. She was so pale they assumed at first she had some sort of wasting disease. She remained perfectly still, with one hand holding an edge of her headscarf so that it obscured her mouth. The mason seemed embarrassed and kept his back to her while he worked. After a quarter of an hour an old man in blue workman's clothes came shuffling along in carpet slippers and took her hand without a word and led her away. When the propriétaire came out he nodded at the other side of the street, at the empty space and murmured, 'Trois. Mari et deux frères,' as he set down their salads.This sombre incident remained with them as they struggled up the hill in the heat, heavy with lunch, towards the Bergerie de Tédenat. They stopped half way up in the shade of a stand of pines before a long stretch of open ground. Bernard was to remember this moment for the rest of his life. As they drank from their water bottles he was struck by the recently concluded war not as a historical, geopolitical fact but as a multiplicity, a near-infinity of private sorrows, as a boundless grief minutely subdivided without diminishment among individuals who covered the continent like dust, like spores whose separate identities would remain unknown, and whose totality showed more sadness than anyone could ever begin to comprehend; a weight borne in silence by hundreds of thousands, millions, like the woman in black for a husband and two brothers, each grief a particular, intricate, keening love story that might have been otherwise. It seemed as though he had never thought about the war before, not about its cost. He had been so busy with the details of his work, of doing it well, and his widest view had been of war aims, of winning, of statistical deaths, statistical destruction, and of post-war reconstruction. For the first time he sensed the scale of the catastrophe in terms of feeling; all those unique and solitary deaths, all that consequent sorrow, unique and solitary too, which had no place in conferences, headlines, history, and which had quietly retired to houses, kitchens, unshared beds, and anguished memories. This came upon Bernard by a pine tree in the Languedoc in 1946 not as an observation he could share with June but as a deep apprehension, a recognition of a truth that dismayed him into silence and, later, a question: what possible good could come of a Europe covered in this dust, these spores, when forgetting would be inhuman and dangerous, and remembering a constant torture?”

Page 164-165.
Black Dogs (1992)

Wolfram von Eschenbach photo

“Any brother of mine and I make one person, as do a good man and his good wife.”

Mîn bruodr und ich daz ist ein lîp,
als ist guot man unt des guot wîp.
Bk. 15, st. 740, line 29; p. 369.
Parzival