Fontanne Ottoman Quotes

When Turkey began approaching the EU, I wasn't the only one who worried that the dark stain in Turkey's history - or rather the history of the Ottoman Empire - could become a problem one day. In other words, what happened to the Armenians in World War I. That's why I couldn't leave the issue untouched. ~ Orhan Pamuk

Alamo has been a strong inspiration for nations striving for freedom all around the globe since 1836. Gvozdansko has not earned public reputation, but profoundly touched the heart of the bitter enemy Ferhat-paša alone in 1578. Croats have a duty and obligation to learn about Gvozdansko. ~ Vinko Vrbanic

In our five thousand years of civilization, our history has often been the handmaid of geography. We lie exactly midway between the North Pole and the Equator. We are the gateway between the Fertile Crescent and Europe, between landlocked Central Asia and the Mediterranean world and beyond that, the Atlantic. Peoples and empires have ebbed and flowed across this land. Even today sixty per cent of Europe's gas supply either passes down the Bosphorus or runs under our very feet through pipelines. We have always been the navel of the world. Yet our favoured location by its very nature surrounded us with historical enemies; to the north, Russia to the south, the Arabs; to the east, Persia and to the west, the Red Apple itself, Europe.'
The Red Apple, the myth of Ottoman imperialism. When Mehmet the Conqueror looked out from the parapets of his fortress of Europe at Constantinople, the Red Apple had been the golden globe in the open palm of Justinian's statue in the Hippodrome, the symbol of Roman power and ambition. Mehmet rode through the crumbling Hippodrome, the decaying streets of dying Byzantium and the Red Apple became Rome itself. The truth of the Red Apple was that it would always be unattainable, for it was the westering spirit, the globe of the setting sun itself.
'Now we find ourselves caught between Arab oil, Russian gas and Iranian radiation and we found that the only way we could take the Red Apple was by joining it.'
This is poor stuff, Georgios thin ~ Ian McDonald

Without hope, death is merely the doorway to darkness. An oblivion from which none returns. With hope, death becomes the gateway to everlasting light, an illumination of the sensorium - Huja ~ Rehan Khan

The hopelessness of the Turkish Government should make me witness with delight its being swept out of the countries which it tortures. Next to the Ottoman Government nothing can be more deplorable and blameworthy than jealousies between Greek and Slav and plans by the States already existing for appropriating other territory. Why not Macedonia for the Macedonians as well as Bulgaria for the Bulgarians and Serbia for the Serbians? ~ William E. Gladstone

Take it from someone who's read the Wikipedia entry: this is how the Ottoman Empire was won: madden horsemen fueled by lethal jet-black coffee-mud. ~ Cory Doctorow

Religion mattered at a deep level, which must help to explain why none of these people went over to Islam; but in most cases it did not direct their lives, nor did it prevent some of them from cultivating their connection with a powerful relative who was a Muslim convert. Whilst the fact that they were Catholics from one of Christendom's frontier zones may have given them an enhanced sense of their Catholicism, the fact that they were Albanians, connected by language, blood and history to Ottoman subjects and Ottoman territory, gave them an ability to see things also from something more like an Ottoman perspective ~ Noel Malcolm

Sometimes you arrive in a place, not where you want to be, but where you need to be - Konjic ~ Rehan Khan

Turkey has never been colonized, so it remained as an independent nation after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. ~ Mustafa Akyol

The difference between slaves in Roman and Ottoman days and today's employees is that slaves did not need to flatter their boss. ~ Nassim Nicholas Taleb

You can be fearful of death. Just don't be fearful of facing it - Konjic ~ Rehan Khan

For the young Turks, soon to assume power and build a nation-state on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, Japan provided clear inspiration. These envious outside observers of Japan's progress did not see the extreme violence of the country's makeover. Nor did they notice the trends towards conformity, militarism and racism that were later to make Japan a ominously successful rival to Europe's imperialist nations- by 1942, Japan would occupy or dominate a broad swathe of the Asian mainland, from the Aleutian Islands in the north-east to the borders of India, after booting out almost all the European masters in between. For many Asians in the late nineteenth century, the proof of Japan's success lay in the extent to which it could demand equality with the West; and, here, the evidence was simply overwhelming for people who had tried to do the same and had failed miserably. ~ Pankaj Mishra

Even the dreamer must live, without which, what hope remains of their dreams being fulfilled - Gurkan ~ Rehan Khan

In life I have done many things, proclaimed even more, most of which will be forgotten. What people will treasure dearly, is how I stirred their emotions and brought out the best in them - Konjic ~ Rehan Khan

The Roman empire lasted 450 years by granting citizenship and leadership opportunities to people of all customs and religions.
The Ottoman empire lasted 500 years, and tolerated local customs and religions.
The Third Reich lasted 8 years. ~ Brock M. Stout

The Balkans I know is the Balkans from below: a space of bogoumils- these medieval heretics who fought against the Crusades and churches- and a place of anti-Ottoman resistance; a home to hajduks and klephts, pirates and rebels; a refuge of feminists and socialists, of antifascist and partisans; a place of dreamers of all sorts struggling both against provincial "peninsularity" as well as against occupations, foreign interventions and that process which is now, in a strange inversion of history, often described with that fashionable phrase, "balkanization." (p.11) ~ Andrej Grubacic

Swan renders the gathering amusingly, depicting the vile android Brainiac, scourge of the galaxy, sitting on Clark's ottoman and chatting away with Luthor as if he's at some kind of Stitch-n-Bitch-of-Doom. ~ Glen Weldon

The appearance of the mountain changes, according to when in the day you beheld it and which side you approached it from. Our intellect is thus limited, so it is best not to judge others, for they may also be gazing upon the same mountain but simply viewing it from a different angle - Huja ~ Rehan Khan

Hey, hot cheeks!" A hand smacked my ass and I shrieked. Spinning around, I glared at Dan Ottoman, a blond, pimply, clarinet player from band. He leered back at me and winked. "Never took you for a player, girl," he said, trying to ooze charm but reminding me of a dirty Kermit the Frog. "Come down to band sometime. I've got a flute you can play ~ Julie Kagawa

There is no greater motor for architecture than religious fervor. Ancient examples include the Inca, Aztec Egyptian civilizations. In more recent times, Christianity gave rise to the Gothic and Romanesque architecture of the European middle ages and Islam produced the wonders of the Ottoman Empire. ~ Helen Grant Ross

If Palestine had been invaded by Buddhists, or post-Ottoman Turkey, resistance would have been just as strong. ~ Anonymous

We see people in the Middle East begin to have dreams of new Ottoman Empire where everyone will be subjected to some of what we've seen happen in those countries where we helped bring about an Arab Spring that's turned into a Winter Nightmare. ~ Louie Gohmert

Some of these types, like the Persians and Ottoman Turks, are largely white; others, like the southern Indians and Yemenite Arabs, are largely black; while still others, like the Himalayan and Central Asian peoples, have much yellow blood. ~ T. Lothrop Stoddard

On the eve of World War I, an estimated two million Armenians lived in the Ottoman Empire. Well over a million were deported and hundreds of thousands were simply killed. ~ Eliot Engel

In many ways, the system of government, taxation and military organization developed by the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the envy of Western Europe. ~ Noel Malcolm

She seated herself on a dark ottoman with the brown books behind her, looking in her plain dress of some thin woollen-white material, without a single ornament on her besides her wedding-ring, as if she were under a vow to be different from all other women; and Will sat down opposite her at two yards' distance, the light falling on his bright curls and delicate but rather petulant profile, with its defiant curves of lip and chin. Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers which had opened then and there. Dorothea for the moment forgot her husband's mysterious irritation against Will: it seemed fresh water at her thirsty lips to speak without fear to the one person whom she had found receptive; for in looking backward through sadness she exaggerated a past solace. ~ George Eliot

We create ourselves to be almost blind walking dead, where we are led by both negative aspects of religion and cultural conformity to gloss over people. We gloss over the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. We gloss over the Japanese internment camps that most likely would have been far worse had the war continued longer. We often marginalize those besides the ethnic and Jewish descent that died in the Nazi holocaust of World war II. ~ L.B. Ó Ceallaigh

Coffee was first introduced by Yemeni Muslims. When Ottoman Empire grew, coffee spread to Istanbul and from there to the rest of Europe. ~ Firas Alkhateeb

Every step we take in life, is one step closer to our death - Huja ~ Rehan Khan

No!" Lada shook her head, eyes still wild. "I cannot go in there! If a woman enters the harem complex, she belongs to the sultan!"
Mehmed peered out the window they had climbed through, to make sure their path was clear. "I would not hold you to that, Lada, and - "
"It would not matter! Everyone would know, I would be labeled your concubine, and - "
Radu took her hand, which still hung in the air pointing accusingly at Mehmed, and squeezed it in his own. "And you would be unmarriageable? What a tragedy. I know how dearly you treasured the hope of marrying some minor Ottoman noble, dear sister."
She finally met his eyes, hers still feverish and frenzied. "But I would be his."
"I think our Mehmed is smart enough to know he could never claim you. Right?"
Radu's tone was light, and he turned to Mehmed with a playful smile. Perhaps it was the dimness of the room, or the stress of the night, but Mehmed's face was clouded with…disappointment? Hurt? Then a tight, false smile took its place, and he nodded. Radu's own chest felt equally tight with anxiety and fear and a twisting, bitter sense of jealousy. ~ Kiersten White

With his decision to use force against the violent extremists of the Islamic State, President
Obama ... is stepping once again - and with understandably great reluctance - into the chaos
of an entire civilization that has broken down. Arab civilization, such as we knew it, is all but
gone. The Arab world today is more violent, unstable, fragmented and driven by extremism -
the extremism of the rulers and those in opposition-than at any time since the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire a century ago. ~ Hisham Melhem