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You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

Naguib Mahfouz

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Naguib Mahfouz
Age: 94 †
Born: 1911
Born: December 11
Died: 2006
Died: August 30
Artist
Autobiographer
Film Writer
Intellectual
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Short Story Writer
Translator
Writer
Cairo
Egypt
Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha
Inspirational
Egyptian
Tell
Questioning
Men
Clever
Questions
Leadership
Answers
Wise
Whether

More quotes by Naguib Mahfouz

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In the calculus of good deeds you have the most to gain.
Naguib Mahfouz
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The Nobel Prize has given me, for the first time in my life, the feeling that my literature could be appreciated on an international level.
Naguib Mahfouz
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Writing is for men who can think and feel, not mindless sensation seekers out of nightclubs and bars. But these are bad times. We are condemned to work with upstarts, clowns who no doubt got their training in a circus and then turned to journalism as the appropriate place to display their tricks.
Naguib Mahfouz
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I am practically in the employ of Mr. Nobel. I have to meet everyone he sends my way.
Naguib Mahfouz
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If life has no meaning, why don't we create a meaning for it?
Naguib Mahfouz
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The real malady is fear of life, not of death
Naguib Mahfouz
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The calendar has a magic that makes us imagine a memory can be resurrected and revived, but nothing returns.
Naguib Mahfouz
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I consider Khomeini's position dangerous. He does not have the right to pass judgment-that is not the Islamic way.
Naguib Mahfouz
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I am the son of two civilizations that at a certain age in history have formed a happy marriage. The first of these, seven thousand years old, is the Pharaonic civilization the second, one thousand four hundred years old, is the Islamic civilization.
Naguib Mahfouz
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For the first time in my life, I felt that a wave, a justice was sweeping away a deep-seated decay without any indulgence. I dearly wished that it would keep going without hesitation or deviation, in a spirit of purity forever.
Naguib Mahfouz
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I accepted the interviews and encounters that had to be held with the media, but I would have preferred to work in peace.
Naguib Mahfouz
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Today's interpretations of religion are often backward and contradict the needs of civilization.
Naguib Mahfouz
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I've never worked in politics, never been a member of an official committee or a political party.
Naguib Mahfouz
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I defend both the freedom of expression and society's right to counter it. I must pay the price for differing. It is the natural way of things.
Naguib Mahfouz
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As for life's tragedies, our love will defeat them. Love is the most effective cure. In the crevices of disasters, happiness lies like a diamond in a mind, so let us instill in ourselves the wisdom of love.
Naguib Mahfouz
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It is simply not part of my culture to preserve notes. I have never heard of a writer preserving his early drafts.
Naguib Mahfouz
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Madness is the acme of intelligence.
Naguib Mahfouz
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It's clearly more important to treat one's fellow man well than to be always praying and fasting and touching one's head to a prayer mat.
Naguib Mahfouz
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History is full of people who went to prison or were burned at the stake for proclaiming their ideas. Society has always defended itself.
Naguib Mahfouz
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You know what I'm afraid of? That God is sick of us.
Naguib Mahfouz