Ataturk Quotes

What a lovely drink this is, it makes one want to be a poet ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Sovereignty and the right to rule cannot be conferred on anyone no matter who ... as a result of an academic discussion. Sovereignty is acquired by force and power and violence. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Lasting peace is sought, it is essential to adopt international measures to improve the lot of the masses. The welfare of the entire human race must replace hunger and oppression. People of the world must be taught to give up envy, avarice and rancour. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Every nation has the right to demand proper treatment and no country should violate the territory of any other country. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Freedom and independence form my character. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Freedom and independence is my character. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

You, the sons and daughters, the future of Turkiye, even under such circumstances and conditions, your duty is to save the Turkish independence and the Republic, you will find the power you need in the noble blood in your veins. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

There is much to justify Turkey's reverence for Ataturk. He is the force that allowed Turkey to rise from the ashes of defeat and emerge as a vibrant new nation. ~ Stephen Kinzer

Ataturk approved of the mevlevi dervish approach to God as being 'an expression of Turkish genius' that reclaimed Islam from what he saw as hide-bound, backward Arab tradition. ~ Stephen Kinzer

[Turkish women] had lived free of the veil for 5,000 years, and had been covered only in the last 600 years. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

A nation which makes the final sacrifice for life and freedom does not get beaten. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Turkey's true master is the peasant. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Persons, who knows that, that they will not be able to rest along the way when they took a path, will never get tired. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Vision, of the Ittihadists and, by extension, Kemal Ataturk, did not include the non-Muslim population of what was once the Ottoman Empire. ~ Eric Bogosian

Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable. We are against such a situation and will not allow it. Those who use religion in such a manner have fooled our people; it is against just such people that we have fought and will continue to fight. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The main thing is that Ataturk saw the desperate condition of the countries that had not had an industrial revolution. Ataturk saw where history was going. He really did in Turkey what we are all hoping somebody will do in [Islamic] countries where fundamentalists thrive, that they get somebody today that has the vision that Ataturk had in 1915. ~ Ahmet Ertegun

We do not consider our principles as dogmas contained in books that are said to come from heaven. We derive our inspiration, not from heaven, or from an unseen world, but directly from life. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Science is the most reliable guide in life. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Men, I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. In the time that it takes us to die, other forces and commanders can come and take our place. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

A nation devoid of art and artists cannot have a full existence. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Peace at Home, Peace in the World ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

These left-overs from the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the Republican rule. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

If a society does not wage a common struggle to attain a common goal with its women and men, scientifically there is no way for it to become civilized or developed. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The future is in the skies. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The Turkish nation's character is noble
The Turkish nation is industrious
The Turkish nation is intelligent. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

In human life, you will find players of religion until the knowledge and proficiency in religion will be cleansed from all superstitions, and will be purified and perfected by the enlightenment of real science. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The reason Ataturk, Kemal Ataturk was and is so highly reputed, is he was attempting to modernize ... That's not the right word. Well, it is. For lack of a better way of saying it, he was trying to make Islam compatible with the modern twentieth century world. ~ Rush Limbaugh

Justice is the infrastructure of proprietorship. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The evils which sapped the nation's strength had all been wrought in the name of religion. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Sovereignty is not given, it is taken. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Concepts of well-being for countries, for peoples and for individuals are changing. In such a world, to argue for rules that never change would be to deny the reality found in scientific knowledge and reasoned judgment. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

A youth with wings are the assurance of our nation's future. We must start to work right away and make progress so that; if one day Westerners leave their footprints on the moon, we shall place a Turkish one among those. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

No country is free unless it is democratic. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Victory is for those who can say "Victory is mine". Success is for those who can begin saying "I will succeed" and say "I have succeeded" in the end. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Mankind is a single body and each nation a part of that body. We must never say "What does it matter to me if some part of the world is ailing?" If there is such an illness, we must concern ourselves with it as though we were having that illness. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

I will lead my people by the hand along the road until their feet are sure and they know the way. Then they may choose for themselves and rule themselves. Then my work will be done. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

My people are going to learn the principles of democracy the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will, every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

In short, none of the destructive fantasies that have taken possession of leaders in our own age, from Kemal Ataturk to Stalin, from the Khans of the Kremlin to the Kahns of the Pentagon, were foreign to the souls of the divinely appointed founders of the first machine civilization. With every increase of effective power, extravagantly sadistic and murderous impulses erupted out of the unconscious. This is the trauma that has distorted the subsequent development of all 'civilized' societies. And it is this fact that punctuates the entire history of mankind with outbursts of collective paranoia and tribal delusions of grandeur, mingled with malevolent suspicions, murderous hatreds, and atrociously inhumane acts. ~ Lewis Mumford

To see me does not necessarily mean to see my face. To understand my thoughts is to have seen me. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The nation has placed its faith in the precept that all laws should be inspired by actual needs here on earth as a basic fact of national life. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The biggest battle is the war against ignorance. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

If one day, my words are against science, choose science. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The supreme guide in life is knowledge. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Where there is no freedom, there is death and destruction. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

It was when I entered the military preparatory school and put on its uniform, that a feeling of strength came to me, as if I had become master of my own destiny. ~ Mustafa Kemal Ataturk