Mahmoud Darwish Quotes

“History laughs at both the victim and the aggressor.”

“Maybe you receive pain selfishly — thinking only of yourself. The cycle of pain wounds every participant”

“I had learned that you should always shout louder than your aggressor.”

“In the clashes between ignorance and intelligence, ignorance is generally the aggressor.”

“Today the aggressor is the shepherd of peace, and the beaten and hunted are the troublemakers of the world. What's more, there are whole races who believe it!”

“No major war or act of mass killing in the twentieth century began without the aggressors or perpetrators first claiming innocence and victimhood.”

“The invention of the mechanical clock was one of a number of major advances that turned Europe from a weak, peripheral, highly vulnerable outpost of Mediterranean civilization into a hegemonic aggressor.”

“In 'The King's Speech,' patriotism is utterly contained within a historical moment, the third of September, 1939, where the aggressor is clear, the fight is clear, it hasn't become complicated over time.”

“Forgiveness was work, Eduardo told victims' families--but so, then, was love, and deciding what was right, and defending it. Recusing yourself from judgment so you won't be tainted by the aggressor's sin is the same as turning away from empathy so you won't be touched by the victim's pain.”

“And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars--all over Europe, all over the world. "Sometimes in the private interest of royal families," Satan said, "sometimes to crush a weak nation; but never a war started by the aggressor for any clean purpose--there is no such war in the history of the race.”