Since the beginning of 1979, it has often been said that the Shiite religion, like the ephemeral French Republic of 1792 is "one and indivisible". Nothing could be further from the truth. Those in power do not represent the élite of the hierarchy. Narrow-minded and mediocre, they are as far removed as it is possible to be from the noble ideas of the Prophet. They are ignorant of essential political, economic and social realities of the day, but nonetheless they claim to legislate.
Muhammad Reza PahlaviRelated topics
beginning claim day elite ephemeral far french hierarchy ignorant noble nothing possible power prophet religion shiite truthRelated quotes
Most observers of the French Revolution, especially the clever and noble ones, have explained it as a life-threatening and contagious illness. They have remained standing with the symptoms and have interpreted these in manifold and contrary ways. Some have regarded it as a merely local ill. The most ingenious opponents have pressed for castration. They well noticed that this alleged illness is nothing other than the crisis of beginning puberty.
Novalis
We cannot point to a single definitive solution of any one of the problems that confront us - political, economic, social or moral, that is, having to do with the conduct of life. We are still beginners, and for that reason may hope to improve. To deride the hope of progress is the ultimate fatuity, the last word in poverty of spirit and meanness of mind. There is no need to be dismayed by the fact that we cannot yet envisage a definitive solution of our problems, a resting-place beyond which we need not try to go.
Peter Medawar
All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the message. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments. All media are extensions of some human faculty – psychic or physical.
Marshall McLuhan
An ignorant man believes that the whole universe only exists for him: as if nothing else required any consideration. If, therefore, anything happens to him contrary to his expectation, he at once concludes that the whole universe is evil. If, however, he would take into consideration the whole universe, form an idea of it, and comprehend what a small portion he is of the Universe, he will find the truth. There are many ... passages in the books of the prophets expressing the same idea.
Maimonides
Economic progress means the discovery and application of better ways of doing things to satisfy our wants. The piping of water to a household that previously dragged it from a well, the growing of two blades of grass where one grew before, the development of a power loom that enables one man to weave ten times as much as he could before, the use of steam power and electric power instead of horse or human power - all these things clearly represent economic progress.
Kenneth Boulding