the hopelessness that comes from knowing too little and feeling too much (so brittle, so dry he is in danger of the reverse: feeling nothing and knowing everything)
Arab civilization has collapsed. It won’t recover in my lifetime.
The unimaginable brutality of this latest manifestation of Political Islam in the Arab world is too much to bear for many Muslim Arab
With his decision to use force against the violent extremists of the Islamic State, President Obama. . . is stepping once again - and with understandably great reluctance - into the chaos of an entire civilization that has broken down. Arab civilization, such as we knew it, is all but gone. The Arab world today is more violent, unstable, fragmented and driven by extremism - the extremism of the rulers and those in opposition-than at any time since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire a century ago.
The good thing about Egypt is, between the two World Wars, Egypt was - had a liberal society. It has a political life. It has parties. It was not - it was dysfunctional in many ways, but it was not a very repressive regime. Egypt, at one time, was the bellwether of the Arab world, was the trendsetter, created great culture, movies, cinema, you name it.
If you create enough space in Egypt, civil society will revive itself, and then will you have all of these secular forces, liberals, nationalists and others, compete with the Islamists. And then you will see the Islamists reduced to their size.
I want to be in a position where I feel comfortable selling an idea.
Reproach is infinite, and knows no end.
A man of personality can formulate ideals, but only a man of character can achieve them.
There are really exercises in a kind of consumerist ethic that I think don't have the same moral weight as medicine or health.