Visit me once each year, for it's wrong to abandon people forever.
Naguib MahfouzRead
I believe in life and in people. I feel obliged to advocate their highest ideals as long as I believe them to be true. I also see myself compelled to revolt against ideals I believe to be false, since recoiling from rebellion would be a form of treason
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses a commitment to uphold true ideals and challenge false ones in life and society.
Naguib Mahfouz's quote speaks to the philosopher's responsibility to champion the highest ideals of humanity while also challenging and opposing those ideals that are deemed false or unjust. It reflects a deep-seated belief in the importance of integrity and the moral obligation to engage in both advocacy and dissent, highlighting that remaining passive in the face of falsehood is akin to betrayal.
Themes
IdealsTruthRevoltIntegrityAdvocacyRebellion
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for human rights, one could use this quote to emphasize the importance of standing up for true values.
More from Naguib Mahfouz
All quotes →It's clearly more important to treat one's fellow man well than to be always praying and fasting and touching one's head to a prayer mat.
Naguib MahfouzRead
As for life's tragedies, our love will defeat them. Love is the most effective cure. In the crevices of disasters, happiness lies like a diamond in a mind, so let us instill in ourselves the wisdom of love.
Naguib MahfouzRead
I love Sufism as I love beautiful poetry, but it is not the answer. Sufism is like a mirage in the desert. It says to you, come and sit, relax and enjoy yourself for a while.
Naguib MahfouzRead
If the urge to write should ever leave me, I want that day to be my last.
Naguib MahfouzRead
I found myself in a sea in which the waves of joy and sorrow were clashing against each other.
Naguib MahfouzRead
Similar quotes
Let's make two things clear: Isil is not "Islamic." No religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of Isil's victims have been Muslim. And Isil is certainly not a state.
Barack ObamaRead
But what Freud showed us… was that nothing can be grasped, destroyed, or burnt, except in a symbolic way, as one says, in effigie, in absentia.
Jacques LacanRead
Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.
VoltaireRead
If you can get the inside right, the outside will fall into place.
Eckhart TolleRead
In the market, the fittest are those most able to serve the consumers; in government, the fittest are those most adept at wielding coercion and/or those most adroit at making demagogic appeals to the voting public.
Murray RothbardRead
We can't leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world's people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.
Jane GoodallRead