Great Turkish Writers Quotes

If you want to do something very praiseworthy and very saintly, make a child happy! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Try to see the world from the eyes of an old man! Old eyes are a good place to begin with for understanding the truths! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

If somebody insists to be your enemy, you insist more to be his friend! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Let your works not be interrupted by the stupidities happening in your own country! Work and walk on your true path ignoring any kind of distractions! Abstract yourself from all the primitivenesses surrounding you! Concentrate on your work! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

If an earth with no other creatures but only humans would be possible, it would be unbearably boring! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

An empty street sucks your fullness; a full street fills your emptiness! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The most beautiful road is the road you think it is the most beautiful road! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Countries which are governed by the dabblers will undoubtedly turn into the miserable countries! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

I snorted. 'For a great sultan who is lord and ruler of all that he surveys, his English is lamentably poor. He can't even spell England properly.'
Still holding the note, Mr Ascham looked up at me. 'Is that so? Tell me, Bess, do you speak his language? Any Arabic or Turkish-Arabic?'
'You know that I do not.'
'Then however lamentable his English may be, he still speaks your language while you cannot speak his. To me, this gives him a considerable advantage over you. Always pause before you criticise, and never unduly criticise one who has made an effort at something you yourself have not even attempted. ~ Matthew Reilly

May be you have already reached your target, but if you don't know this, you will move away from your target! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Every man has a river on his mind: The River of Thoughts! But not every man has a holy river on his mind: The River of Right Thoughts! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

If you want a forgotten corner to be remembered, a featureless place to be loved, a shadowy emptiness to shine, put some flowers there! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The emerald life of shepherds always reminds us the romantic and humble life we have lost due to living in the cities! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

The stone you took away from a beach will long for that beach because it belongs there! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Where are you? In the past or in the future? It doesn't matter because if you are not in today you are in the wrong place! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Don't pull people into your own storm! Let them stay safe outside your storm! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

British prime minister William Gladstone summed up the West's opinion of "the Turk": Let me endeavor very briefly to sketch, in the rudest outline, what the Turkish race was and what it is. It is not a question of Mahometanism simply, but of Mahometanism compounded with the peculiar character of a race. They are not the mild Mahometans of India, nor the chivalrous Saladins of Syria, nor the cultured Moors of Spain. They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them; and, as far as their dominion reached, civilisation disappeared from view. ~ Eric Bogosian

And all those boys of Europe born in those times, and thereabouts those times, Russian, French, Belgian, Serbian, Irish, English, Scottish, Welsh, Italian, Prussian, German, Austrian, Turkish – and Canadian, Australian, American, Zulu, Gurkha, Cossack, and all the rest – their fate was written in a ferocious chapter in the book of life, certainly. Those millions of mothers and their million gallons of mother's milk, millions of instances of small talk and baby talk, beatings and kisses, ganseys and shoes, piled up in history in great ruined heaps, with a loud and broken music, human stories told for nothing, for ashes, for death's amusement, flung on the mighty scrapheap of souls, all those million boys in all their humours to be milled by the millstones of a coming war. ~ Sebastian Barry

Some political leaders in the world make big mistakes but they never resign; some make a small mistake but they immediately resign! What makes a political leader to resign or not to resign has something to do with having an honour or not! Those who have honour always choose the honourable way: Resignation! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Use the rows, otherwise you either go nowhere or you are drifted to somewhere unwanted! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Walking in a beautiful narrow street is an excellent way of discovering life with the feeling of security! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

If you love the life very much, you will see that everything will be shining, everything will be sparkling! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Montenegro (1877)

THEY rose to where their sovereign eagle sails,
They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height,
Chaste, frugal, savage, arm'd by day and night
Against the Turk; whose inroad nowhere scales
Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails,
And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight
Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight
By thousands down the crags and thro' the vales.
O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne
Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years,
Great Tsernogora! never since thine own
Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm
Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers.
Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1880 ~ Alfred Tennyson

A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.
Ripened in silence, a single word
acquires a great energy for work.
War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there's a word that changes
poison into butter
and honey.
Let a word mature inside yourself.
Withhold the unripened thought.
Come and understand the kind of word
that reduces money and riches to dust.
Know when to speak a word
and when not to speak at all.
A single word turns the universe of hell
into eight paradises.
Follow the Way. Don't be fooled
by what you already know. Be watchful.
Reflect before you speak.
A foolish mouth can brand your soul.
Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words –
Only the word "I"
divides me from God. ~ Yunus Emre

What is democracy? If it is the rule of the majority, ignoring the rest, then it is not good, it is very bad! But if it is the rule of the whole citizens, caring the wills of both the majority and the rest, then it is good, then it is real democracy! And the purpose of every real democracy is to be a modern country, to be a modern structure! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Whatever their ideas or ideologies or religions are, always get along well with people! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Little minds try to solve the matters through violence and darkness; great minds try to solve the matters through love and light! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Only the exceptional paths bring exceptional glories! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

A peaceful nature is the best doctor for an unpeaceful mind! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

When a great moment arises, it is great to be right there! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Albania's future is towards Christianity, since it is connected with it culturally, old memories, and its pre-Turkish nostalgia. With the passing of time, the late Islamic religion that came with the Ottomans should evaporate (at first in Albania and then in Kosova), until it will be replaced by Christianity or, to be more exact, Christian culture. Thus from one evil (the prohibition of religion in 1967) goodness will come. The Albanian nation will make a great historical correction that will accelerate its unity with its mother continent: Europe ~ Ismail Kadare

If giving up is to fail, then to hell with give up! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

A society which devastates its homelands' nature no more has the right to live in that territories! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Solitude is the path to visit yourself, it is the path to yourself! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Autumn leaf waits for autumn wind to reach the unreachable places; wise mind waits for silence for the same reason! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

You may give up your big dream and that is very hard! If necessary, give it up but then create a new one! Never live without big dreams because they will keep you alive in life! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

To be remembered, umbrella waits for the rain! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Do not hide your ignorance, because somebody might help you! Hiding always prolongs the problems. ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

We use horses as our slaves; we chain dogs; we steal eggs from the chickens, honey from the bees; we make wallets out of crocodiles; we imprison the birds; we torture the bulls in the arenas; we whip the lions and beat the tigers in the circuses! What are we? Definitely not ethical creatures! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

What we call as burden of life is nothing but the human failure on the matter of creating a just world! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

What is a corrupted politician for a country which is like a fat fish? Just a cat, nothing but a piggish cat! ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan