Quote

Throughout human history, the apostles of purity, those who have claimed to possess a total explanation, have wrought havoc among mere mixed-up human beings.

Salman Rushdie

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Salman Rushdie
Age: 77
Born: 1947
Born: June 19
Actor
Essayist
Novelist
Screenwriter
Writer
Bombay
Rushdie
Joseph Anton
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie
Beings
Apostles
Among
Mixed
History
Purity
Human
Possess
Humans
Explanation
Havoc
Throughout
Wrought
Total
Claimed
Mere
Fanaticism

More quotes by Salman Rushdie

Image
I remember when I was young, many cities in the Muslim world were cosmopolitan cities with a lot of culture.
Salman Rushdie
Image
Sometimes great, banned works defy the censor's description and impose themselves on the world - 'Ulysses,' 'Lolita,' the 'Arabian Nights.'
Salman Rushdie
Image
Human beings understand themselves and shape their futures by arguing and challenging and questioning and saying the un-sayable, not by bowing the knee whether to gods or to men.
Salman Rushdie
Image
One either loves, or waits for love, or banishes love for good. That is the full range of possible choices.
Salman Rushdie
Image
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. Without the freedom to challenge, even to satirize all orthodoxies, it ceases to exist. Language and the imagination cannot be imprisoned, or art will die, and with it, a little of what makes us human.
Salman Rushdie
Image
If you take a look at history, you will find that the understanding of what is good and evil has always existed before the individual religions. The religions were only invented by people afterwards, in order to express this idea.
Salman Rushdie
Image
I had a very difficult relationship with my father, which ended up okay, but there were many difficult years.
Salman Rushdie
Image
Reading is a very different thing than performing. In fact, one of the things I think that doesn't work in books on tape is if the person doing the reading acts too much it becomes irritating to you listening to it.
Salman Rushdie
Image
YouTube is full of pieces of trash. If you want to look on YouTube and find something that insults you, you can probably find it.
Salman Rushdie
Image
We who have grown up on a diet of honour and shame can still grasp what must seem unthinkable to people living in the aftermath of the death of God and of tragedy: that men will sacrifice their dearest love on the implacable altars of their pride.
Salman Rushdie
Image
If you're offended, it's your problem.
Salman Rushdie
Image
But there's one thing we must all be clear about: terrorism is not the pursuit of legitimate goals by some sort of illegitimate means. Whatever the murderers may be trying to achieve, creating a better world certainly isn't one of their goals. Instead they are out to murder innocent people.
Salman Rushdie
Image
We must agree on what matters: kissing in public places, bacon sandwiches, disagreement, cutting-edge fashion, literature, generosity, water, a more equitable distribution of the world's resources, movies, music, freedom of thought, beauty, love.
Salman Rushdie
Image
perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.
Salman Rushdie
Image
From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.
Salman Rushdie
Image
I've never rejected the world I came from. To be rejected by it is horrible.
Salman Rushdie
Image
But I - and I just think it's very - one of the problems of defending the extraordinary principle of freedom of speech is that you have to defend freedom of speech for people like that too.
Salman Rushdie
Image
Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms.
Salman Rushdie
Image
A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it or offer your own version in return.
Salman Rushdie
Image
We all owe death a life.
Salman Rushdie