Ideas don't desert you; ideas aren't treasonous to you, but people can be.
Alan DershowitzRead
The very concept of an Iranian university is an oxymoron. There are no free and open places of learning in that repressive theocracy. Dissenters are not given tenure; they are murdered, after first being tortured. Blasphemy, which is broadly defined, is punished. Gays are not only excluded from Iranian universities, but are imprisoned and killed.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote criticizes the lack of academic freedom and human rights in Iranian universities.
Alan Dershowitz's quote highlights the oppressive environment present in Iranian universities, where academic inquiry is stifled by a repressive regime. He underscores the severe consequences faced by dissenters and marginalized groups, revealing how education in such an environment is fundamentally compromised, transforming the concept of a university into something contradictory and painful rather than a place for free thought and learning.
Themes
EducationFreedomOppressionHuman RightsIran
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on human rights, one could use this quote to illustrate the consequences of repression in education.
More from Alan Dershowitz
All quotes βEd Koch will never "rest in peace." That was not his way. He was always nervously squirming, while making others squirm as well. Comfort was not his goal. He understood that to be a proud and assertive Jew meant never being able to leave a sigh of relief and say "it's over, we are at peace, we can now put down our guard and relax."
Alan DershowitzRead
It's never acceptable to target civilians. It violates the Geneva Accords, it violates the international law of war and it violates all principles of morality.
Alan DershowitzRead
When I was growing up, my mother would always say, 'It will go on your permanent record.' There was no 'permanent record.' If there were a 'permanent record,' I'd never be able to be a lawyer. I was such a bum, in elementary school and high school... There is a permanent record today and it's called the Internet.
Alan DershowitzRead
A good lawyer knows how to shut up when he's won his case.
Alan DershowitzRead
Scientists search for truth. Philosophers search for morality. A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Alan DershowitzRead
Similar quotes
Offense is not equal opportunity
Bobby KnightRead
The book to read is not the one which thinks for you, but the one which makes you think. No book in the world equals the Bible for that.
Harper LeeRead
One has to grow up with good talk in order to form the habit of it.
Helen HayesRead
Open your mind to what I shall disclose, and hold it fast within you; he who hears, but does not hold what he has heard, learns nothing. Beatrice - Canto V 40-42
Dante AlighieriRead
How many times... have you encountered the saying, 'When the student is ready, the Master speaks?' Do you know why that is true? The door opens inward. The Master is everywhere, but the student has to open his mind to hear the Masters Voice.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
We feel strongly that the spirit characteristic of America at its noblest, above all the pursuit of higher learning, cannot admit of any conditions as to personnel other than those designed to promote the objects for which this institution is established, and particularly with no regard whatever to accidents of race, creed, or sex.
Abraham FlexnerRead