Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.
Azar NafisiRead
It takes courage to die for a cause, but also to live for one.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the bravery required not just for martyrdom but for sustaining one's beliefs in everyday life.
Azar Nafisi's quote reflects on the duality of courage, suggesting that while the ultimate sacrifice of dying for a cause is a profound act of bravery, the everyday struggle to live authentically for one's beliefs and values is equally daunting. It highlights the importance of steadfastness and resilience in the pursuit of a principled life, showcasing that living for a cause demands continuous strength and commitment.
In practice
During a motivational speech on activism.
Lots of times you can feel as an exile in a country that you were born in.
After the rigged Iranian presidential elections in 2009, the Islamic regime attacked the 'humanities' as the main source of protests, the most effective tool used by the West, especially America, to corrupt and incite Iranian youth, and finally closed down all the Humanities departments in Iran's universities.
The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality.
I believe that it is only through empathy, that the pain experienced by an Algerian woman, a North Korean dissident, a Rwandan child or an Iraqi prisoner, becomes real to me and not just passing news. And it is at times like this when I ask myself, am I prepared - like Huck Finn - to give up Sunday school heaven for the kind of hell that Huck chose?
I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain.
Do not, under any circumstances, belittle a work of fiction by trying to turn it into a carbon copy of real life; what we search for in fiction is not so much reality but the epiphany of truth.
It is important not only to have the awareness and to feel impelled to become involved, it's important that there be a forum out there to which one can relate, an organization- a movement.
They won't break me because the desire for freedom, and the freedom of the Irish people, is in my heart. The day will dawn when all the people of Ireland will have the desire for freedom to show. It is then that we will see the rising of the moon.
I am the voice of the voiceless; Through me the dumb shall speak. Till the deaf world's ears be made to hear. The wrongs of the wordless weak. And I am my brothers keeper, And I will fight his fights; And speak the words for beast and bird. Till the world shall set things right.
We are the women men warned us about.
Even if I don't finish, we need others to continue. It's got to keep going.
We are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horror. But our nerves are completely steady. And we are still alive.
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