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You can hand out condoms, drop bombs, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change.

Greg Mortenson

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Greg Mortenson
Age: 66
Born: 1957
Born: December 27
Humanitarian
Mountaineer
Nurse
Philanthropist
Writer
Rochester
Minnesota
Society
Roads
Girl
Electricity
Hands
Bombs
Change
Drop
Educated
Girls
Build
Condoms
Hand
Condom

More quotes by Greg Mortenson

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When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.
Greg Mortenson
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The Koran and Islam is about submission, justice and compassion. All people of the book - which means the Torah, Koran and Bible are accorded equal respect under Islam.
Greg Mortenson
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The Pathan people of Waziristan are proud people who I greatly admire.
Greg Mortenson
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the people who live in the last places - the people who are most neglected and least valued by the larger world - often represent the best of who we are and the finest standard of what we are meant to become. This is the power that last places hold over me, and why I have found it impossible to resist their pull.
Greg Mortenson
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When ordinary human beings perform extraordinary acts of generosity, endurance or compassion, we are all made richer by their example. Like the rivers that flow out of the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush, the inspiration they generate washes down to the rest of us. It waters everyone's fields.
Greg Mortenson
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Just as the Torah and Bible teach concern for those in distress, the Koran instructs all Muslims to make caring for widows, orphans, and refugees a priority.
Greg Mortenson
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If you really want to change a culture... empower women.
Greg Mortenson
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Yes, I was detained for eight days in Waziristan in 1996. It was against my will, and my passport and money were taken from me. I was not mistreated or harmed, but I was also not allowed to leave.
Greg Mortenson
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My father ended up starting the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, which is on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. My mother started a school.
Greg Mortenson
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The tune was too ingrained for Mortenson to consider the novelty of this moment- an American, lost in Pakistan, singing a German hymn in Swahili.
Greg Mortenson
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The older I get, the more I appreciate my childhood. It was paradise.
Greg Mortenson
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I think Americans yearn for other alternatives to peace, than the path our government has currently taken, and perhaps why there is great interest in this book, and the message to fight poverty and ignorance with education.
Greg Mortenson
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I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.
Greg Mortenson
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Once I started the first school, I realized this is what my life is meant to be, is to promote education and help kids go to school and that's very clear.
Greg Mortenson
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In tribal society, the most important thing to do when civilians are killed in a skirmish is to acknowledge the deaths, and provide compensation. When tribal clans fight, the victor is required to take care of the vanquished widows and orphans, which puts a limitation on bloodshed, and tempers warring groups to try and negotiate a compromise.
Greg Mortenson
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By the way, although the subtitle of the book Three Cups of Tea is fighting terror, one school at a time, that was not my choice, as fighting terror is not why I do this, I do it to promote peace, and give hope and opportunity to children deprived of education.
Greg Mortenson
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In America we now live more in fear than in hope, and eventually that will lead to ignorance and hatred. We need to have optimism that the world can be a better place, and we can leave a legacy for our children. Being bilingual, travel and studying geography, culture and religions can help.
Greg Mortenson
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. . . hope resides in the future, while perspective and wisdom are almost always found by looking to the past.
Greg Mortenson
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In times of war, you often hear leaders—Christian, Jewish, and Muslim—saying, ‘God is on our side.’ But that isn’t true. In war, God is on the side of refugees, widows, and orphans.
Greg Mortenson
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In Three Cups of Tea I was fairly critical of the military. And I mentioned that they're laptop warriors and there's no boots on the ground. But I can say now that they've gone through a tremendous learning curve.
Greg Mortenson