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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

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Greg Mortenson
Age: 66
Born: 1957
Born: December 27
Humanitarian
Mountaineer
Nurse
Philanthropist
Writer
Rochester
Minnesota
People
Pakistan
Generous
Anywhere
Kinds
Countries
Lifetime
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Hospitable
Kind
Visited

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.
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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.
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If you really want to change a culture... empower women.
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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.
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The Pathan people of Waziristan are proud people who I greatly admire.
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And they did it with something that is basicly worthless in our society - pennies. But overseas, pennies can move mountains
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Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel.' Sign in Skardu
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My work to promote education and literacy in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan has become my life's mission. This takes a full-time commitment 365 24/7.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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There is still a desperate need for investment and promotion of education in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Official figures put Pakistan literacy rate over 45%, but in many rural areas we work it is about 10-15%, and for girls even lower.
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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.
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We all sat there laughing and sipping tea peacefully, an infidel and representatives from three warring sects of Islam. And I thought if we can get along this well, we can accomplish anything. The British policy was ‘divide and conquer.’ But I say ‘unite and conquer.
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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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Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.
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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.
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If we try to resolve terrorism with military might and nothing else, then we will be no safer than we were before 9/11. If we truly want a legacy of peace for our children, we need to understand that this is a war that will ultimately be won with books, not with bombs.
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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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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