All my singles went platinum-plus. All my records and videos were groundbreaking.
I think forcing people to uncover their head is as tyrannical as forcing them to cover it.
Disapproving and boycotting is the Quranic thing to do, whereas violence and threats are not.
Those who hope to nurture genuine religiosity should first establish liberty.
There are strengths in Islamic tradition. Islam actually, as a monotheistic religion, which defined man as a responsible agent by itself, created the idea of the individual in the Middle East and saved it from the communitarianism, the collectivism of the tribe.
It is no secret that many Islamic movements in the Middle East tend to be authoritarian, and some of the so-called 'Islamic regimes' such as Saudi Arabia, Iran - and the worst case was the Taliban in Afghanistan - they are pretty authoritarian. No doubt about that.
Rage is a sign of nothing but immaturity. The power of any faith comes not from its coercion of critics and dissenters. It comes from the moral integrity and the intellectual strength of its believers.
In the Life of Darwin by his son, there is related an incident of how the great naturalist once studied long as to just what a certain spore was. Finally he said, "It is this, for if it isn't, then what is it?" And all during his life he was never able to forget that he had been guilty of this unscientific attitude, for science is founded on certitude, not assumption.
The cruelest thing you can do to a person who's living in panic is to offer him or her hope that turns out false. When the crash comes its intolerable.
When you stop a dictator, there are always risks. But there are greater risks in not stopping a dictator.
Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance. God help me, I do love it so.