Avital Sharansky Quotes

I loved putting on stories as plays when I was just six. I was the director, the actress and the set designer; I cast my girlfriends in parts, and I suggested to the local kindergarten teachers that we do free performances for the children. ~ Mili Avital

Believe me, the drug of freedom is universally potent. ~ Natan Sharansky

Learning to speak is like learning to shoot. ~ Avital Ronell

I have no sentiments for nationality or for soil. But I grew up in Israel, so those things are in my blood, and I want to be part of Israeli culture. ~ Mili Avital

Of course, there can be serious injustices within free societies. ~ Natan Sharansky

On the other hand, if the free world is concerned with how a new Palestinian leader governs, then the peace process will have a real chance to succeed. ~ Natan Sharansky

Exemplary friendship embraces, in a resolutely unrequited way, an unwearied capacity for loving generously without being loved back. Marking the limit of possibility - the friend need not be there - this structure recapitulates in fact the Aristotelian values according to which acts and states of loving are preferred to the condition of being-loved, which depends for its vigor on a mere potentiality. Being loved by your friend just pins you to passivity. For Aristotle, loving on the contrary, constitutes an act. To the extent that loving is moved by a kind of disclosive energy, it puts itself out there, shows up for the other, even where the other proves to be a rigorous no-show. Among other things, loving has to be declared and known, and thus involves an element of risk for the one who loves and who, abandoning any guarantee of reciprocity, braves the consequences when naming that love. ~ Avital Ronell

Neither a pathology nor an index as such of moral default, stupidity is nonetheless linked to the most dangerous failures of human endeavor. ~ Avital Ronell

This scepticism is the same scepticism I heard a generation ago in the USSR when few thought that a democratic transformation behind the iron curtain was possible. ~ Natan Sharansky

I don't need legitimization to take part in Israeli productions; I am a good actress. To work in Israel is a financial investment for me. I do it for emotional, not artistic, reasons. ~ Mili Avital

In dictatorships you need courage to fight evil; in the free world you need courage to see evil. ~ Natan Sharansky

The most important domestic challenge facing the U.S. at the close of the twentieth century is the re-creation of fatherhood as avital social role for men. At stake is nothing less than the success of the American experiment. For unless we reverse the trend of fatherlessness, no other set of accomplishments
not economic growth or prison construction or welfare reform or better schools
will succeed in arresting the decline of child well-being and the spread of male violence. To tolerate the trend of fatherlessness is to accept the inevitability of continued social recession. ~ David Blankenhorn

The two most important things that can be done to promote democracy in the world is first, to bring moral clarity back to world affairs and second, to link international policies to the advance of democracy around the globe. ~ Natan Sharansky

Will dissent be permitted? The answer to that question will determine whether the society is a free society or a fear society. ~ Natan Sharansky

When we are unwilling to draw clear moral lines between free societies and fear societies, when we are unwilling to call the former good and the latter evil, we will not be able to advance the cause of peace because peace cannot be disconnected from freedom. ~ Natan Sharansky

Stupidity exceeds and undercuts materiality, runs loose, wins a few rounds, recedes, gets carried home in a clutch of denial-and returns. Essentially linked to the inexhaustible, stupidity is also that which fatigues knowledge and wears down history. ~ Avital Ronell

Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected. ~ Natan Sharansky

They tried their best to find a place where I was isolated. But all the resources of a superpower cannot isolate the man who hears a voice of freedom, a voice I heard from the very chamber of my soul. ~ Natan Sharansky

Imagine if the United States, in its war against Hitler, had said to Stalin: we don't want your support until you make your country democratic. ~ Natan Sharansky

When a man is afraid and accedes to fear, he will always find arguments to justify his own surrender. ~ Natan Sharansky

Only weeks after Oslo began, when nearly all the world and most of Israel was drunk with the idea of peace, I argued that a Palestinian society not constrained by democratic norms would be a fear society that would pose a grave threat to Israel. ~ Natan Sharansky

To understand why dictators have a problem with making peace - or at least a genuine peace - the link between the nature of a regime and its external behavior must be understood. ~ Natan Sharansky

It took me many years to understand that my identity is more Israeli than Jewish. ~ Mili Avital

I may not be Meryl Streep, but I am not untalented. ~ Mili Avital

Among the other things I've learned as a mother, is that women continue to explain way too much. ~ Avital Norman Nathman

My theory is that security - also against terror - can only be accomplished through global democratization. ~ Natan Sharansky

Can someone within that society walk into the town square and say what they want without fear of being punished for his or her views? If so, then that society is a free society. If not, it is a fear society. ~ Natan Sharansky

The central premise behind Oslo was that if Arafat were given enough legitimacy, territory, weapons and money, he would use his power to fight terror and make peace with Israel. ~ Natan Sharansky

To make things 'perfectly clear' is reactionary and stupefying. The real is not perfectly clear. ~ Avital Ronell

By helping readers understand these mechanics, I hope they will appreciate why freedom is for everyone, why it is essential for our security and why the free world plays a critically important role in advancing democracy around the globe. ~ Natan Sharansky

I was inspired to write this book by those who are sceptical of the power of freedom to change the world. ~ Natan Sharansky

Democratic leaders, whose power is ultimately dependent on popular support, are held accountable for failing to improve the lives of their citizens. Therefore, they have a powerful incentive to keep their societies peaceful and prosperous. ~ Natan Sharansky

It is not surprising, then, that in the decade since Oslo began, Arafat used all the resources placed at his disposal to fan the flames of hatred against Israel. ~ Natan Sharansky

People may believe that there can be a society where dissent is not permitted, but which is nonetheless not a fear society because everyone agrees with one another and therefore no one wants to dissent. ~ Natan Sharansky

In Israel, I think I have the image of an 'Ashkenazi woman' as a stereotype. Someone once told me that I look like a deodorant commercial. But my appearance is misleading; I can be emotionally aggressive, too, and in 'Law and Order,' I once played a murderer. I see no limitations. I see both my toughness and the softness. ~ Mili Avital

In contrast, fear societies are societies in which dissent is banned. ~ Natan Sharansky

Arafat rejected the deal because, as a dictator who had directed all his energies toward strengthening the Palestinians hatred toward Israel, Arafat could not afford to make peace. ~ Natan Sharansky