Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Greg Mortenson
Age: 66
Born: 1957
Born: December 27
Humanitarian
Mountaineer
Nurse
Philanthropist
Writer
Rochester
Minnesota
Life
Future
Somewhere
Like
Hate
Group
People
Death
Aren
Pakistan
Doesn
Choose
Offered
Happens
Groups
Afghanistan
Reason
Learned
Bright
Enough
Simply
Decide
Children
Happen
Terror

More quotes by Greg Mortenson

Image
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
Image
Slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.
Greg Mortenson
Image
You have to attack the source of your enemy’s strength. In America’s case, that’s not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with those people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever.
Greg Mortenson
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The older I get, the more I appreciate my childhood. It was paradise.
Greg Mortenson
Image
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
Image
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
Image
If you really want to change a culture... empower women.
Greg Mortenson
Image
The people of Pakistan are some of the most hospitable, kinds and generous people I have met anywhere, in the over 70 countries I have visited in my lifetime.
Greg Mortenson
Image
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
Image
I decided in '96 to dedicate my life to mostly promoting literacy and education for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Greg Mortenson
Image
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
Image
Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.' Sign in Skardu
Greg Mortenson
Image
Some of the most memorable moments I've had is to have my family along - who are our greatest ambassadors for peace. Politics will never bring peace, but people will.
Greg Mortenson
Image
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
Image
Our greatest ally in the Pakistan region of turmoil is the moderate Muslim majority, who we must reach out to and embrace if we ever are to have peace for our children.
Greg Mortenson
Image
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
Image
I've had two fatwas issued against me by despot mullahs opposed to education - and important to know that the great majority of Imams and Islamic religious leaders support education for all children.
Greg Mortenson