The only thing worse than a bad review from the Ayatollah Khomeini would be a good review from the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Interpretation
A good review from a negative source is worse than a bad review from the same source.
This quote suggests that the approval of someone known for their negative views or actions is of little value and can even be detrimental. Salman Rushdie highlights the idea that being praised by a figure like Ayatollah Khomeini, who is associated with oppressive ideologies, would only signal compromise and align with harmful beliefs rather than true merit.
In practice
In a discussion about ethical branding, one might quote this to emphasize the implications of seeking validation from problematic figures.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
When death comes, he respects neither age nor merit. He sweeps from the earthly existence the sick and the strong, the rich and the poor, and should teach us to live to be prepared for death.
Most people know no other way of judging men's worth but by the vogue they are in, or the fortunes they have met with.
He who can make distinction in God without number or quantity, knows that the three persons of the Trinity are one God.
American experience seems to suggest that people are virtually unlimited in their need to give themselves away, on various levels. Some just prefer to do it in secret.
If you carry someone else's fears and live by someone else's values, you may find that you have lived their lives.
The United Nations stands for the freedom and equality of all peoples, irrespective of race, religion, or ideology.
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