Mir Taqi Mir Quotes

I am back in my beloved city. The scene of desolation fills my eyes with tears. At every step my distress and agitation increases. I cannot recognize houses or landmarks I once knew well. Of the former inhabitants, there is no trace. Everywhere there is a terrible emptiness. All at once I find myself in the quarter where I once resided. I recall the life I used to live: meeting friends in the evening, reciting poetry, making love, spending sleepless nights pining for beautiful women and writing verses on their long tresses which held me captive. That was life! What is there left of it? Nothing. ~ Khushwant Singh

Once through this ruined city did I pass
I espied a lonely bird on a bough and asked
'What knowest thou of this wilderness?'
It replied: 'I can sum it up in two words:
'Alas, Alas! ~ Khushwant Singh

You think America is the biggest place on Earth, but it's not. [The view from Mir] put everything in perspective. ~ Shannon Lucid

The Soviets were worried that the Americans would attack their "sparkling new Mir space station, ... in a space shuttle, throw out grappling hooks, forcibly board the peaceful habitat and claim it as captured territory. To the hard-core Soviet mind-set, the American government was an unstable combination of cowboys and gangsters, unpredictable and capable of any insane action. The cosmonauts would have to be armed against outrageous aggression. ~ James Mahaffey

Try again. Fall flat on your face, get up, try again. Fall on your face, get up, try again. ~ Frank Mir

He who accuses another of being an evil person says so because he is afraid of him. ~ Muhammad Taqi Usmani

People get upset when Baghdad, the "Cradle of Civilization" is burning, or when the Buddhas in Afghanistan are falling. These are real concerns. ~ Aleksandra Mir

Mir astronaut Jerry Linenger writes in his memoir that he was surprised to find a bottle of cognac in one arm of his spacesuit and a bottle of whiskey in the other. (Linenger was the Frank Burns of space exploration: ~ Mary Roach

Long flights give you more time to reflect, look around, experience your surroundings. I got to know the nooks and crannies on Mir very, very well. ~ Michael Foale

I would like to apologize to Brock Lesnar, his family, the UFC and the UFC fans for my stupid remarks. I respect Brock, all the other fighters, and the sport of mixed martial arts. I'm sorry that I stepped out of line. ~ Frank Mir

the Russian engineers had taped, strapped and sealed our docking module's hatch just a little too enthusiastically, with multiple layers. So we did the true space-age thing: we broke into Mir using a Swiss Army knife. Never leave the planet without one. As ~ Chris Hadfield

There are situations where you can either rise to the occasion or you can feel sorry for yourself. Really that's within your own abilities to make that decision. ~ Frank Mir

ISS leak is just like on a ship, there are bulkheads that, if there's an emergency, can separate an area that's no longer airtight from the undamaged portion of the station. The former Russian space station Mir actually did once develop a leak, after colliding with an unmanned cargo ship. Everyone survived. ~ Ulrich Walter

Dutch beaches were known to me as man-made territories, as part of various land reclamation projects. But I was also interested in the media reality of the Moon landing. I wanted to use that event as a measure of time, to see what had happened in those thirty years - which happens to be my lifetime as well. I was born in 1967 and I remember seeing the Moon landing on TV when I was two. All those things were in play. Then it became a big production. It took five months to gather up the goodwill and make it happen. ~ Aleksandra Mir

There are two ways of confronting the country's problems.One is through a management style based on adventurism, instability, play-acting, exaggerations, wrongdoing, being secretive, self-importance, superficiality and ignoring the law. The second way is based on realism, respect, openness, collective wisdom and avoiding extremism. ~ Mir-Hossein Mousavi

My purpose isn't to be confrontational. My purpose is to find out about the world and play myself against it to the extent that it is even conceivable. ~ Aleksandra Mir

In a way I am saying the nation-state doesn't exist, borders don't exist, you can try going anywhere. It is a kind of pre-Internet consensus I always had in me. ~ Aleksandra Mir

If a Snickers chocolate bar has 50% sugar, wouldn't it be safe to eat the other half? ~ Wakas Mir

When I'm doing my best is when I'm completely focused ... You completely wipe off any thoughts of the future, there's nothing going on in the past, you're just completely locked in on the moment, and there's no thinking, you're zoned in on this moment in time. ~ Frank Mir

If I improve just a little bit every day, I'm a happier person ~ Frank Mir

I follow these intimate connections of strangers and, surprise!, end up finding even myself in the work at some point. ~ Aleksandra Mir

You know what the true definition of hell is? It's when you die, you get to meet the person you could have been. ~ Frank Mir

It is true that we Russians have sent only four doctors into space in forty years of flight, but still I might have had chance to fly to Mir or International Space Station except for one fact. This is that I cannot urinate - is this the right word, Mr. Roth? - I cannot urinate on wheel of bus. ~ Dan Simmons

You pick people, and they pick you sometimes. It's especially great to connect with people you think you have nothing in common with. ~ Aleksandra Mir

Religion is the retarded stepchild of philosophy. ~ Frank Mir

I am in a chaos of principles - groping in the dark - acting by instinct and not after example. Eight or nine years ago when I came here first, I had a neat stock of fixed opinions, but they dropped away one by one; and the further I get the less sure I am. I doubt if I have anything more for my present rule of life than following inclinations which do me and nobody else any harm, and actually give pleasure to those I love best. There, gentlemen, since you wanted to know how I was getting on, I have told you. Much good may it do you! I cannot explain further here. I perceive there is something wrong somewhere in our social formulas: what it is can only be discovered by men or women with greater insight than mine - if, indeed, they ever discover it - at least in our time.

Gekürzt:
Meine Grundsätze sind in Wirrwarr geraten – ich taste im dunkeln -, handle aus Instinkt und nicht nach Vorbildern. Vor acht oder neun Jahren, […] hatte ich einen schönen Vorrat feststehender Meinungen; aber die sind mir eine nach der andern abhanden gekommen; je älter ich werde , um so weniger sicher bin ich. Eigentlich befolge ich jetzt keine andere Lebensregel, als dass ich Neigungen nachgehe, die weder mir noch sonst jemandem schaden, sondern denen, die ich liebe, wirklich Freude machen. […] Ich spüre, dass etwas in unserem sozialen Gefüge nicht stimmt: aber was es ist, das können nur Männer und Frauen mit besserer Einsicht als ich herausfinden – wenn sie es überhaupt herausfinden ~ Thomas Hardy

It is impossible to exaggerate how much better the formula es denkt in mir is than cogito ergo sum, which lets us in for pure subjectivism. ~ Gabriel Marcel

The Stonehenge proposal got a lot of interesting criticism. One of the best - or worst - said something like, "Go home to Las Vegas." I think this project could possibly be realized at a very late part of my career. Right now, I don't have the authority, the budget, the credibility. ~ Aleksandra Mir

The plane as an object has been a huge effort to make. It is a sculpture, a technological invention, a piece of aviation culture. But really, it only exists to be inserted into a variety of landscapes, to be a catalyst, to offset them. ~ Aleksandra Mir

abandonment of spiritual values which makes us stand aghast.' The Mir answered: 'Neither could you provide entertainment for your people, nor could you bind them to your person. To call them "my people ~ Idries Shah

I've gotten all kinds of reactions and it's been used in so many different ways. ~ Aleksandra Mir

I find myself doing fieldwork physically, in the tradition of anthropology. I literally go to the opposite end of the world, to the most exotic faraway places I possibly can, only to find the closest things to me when I get there. ~ Aleksandra Mir

In 1989 I came to New York to go to the School of Visual Arts. Then, after two years, I switched over to the New School for Social Research and did cultural anthropology in the graduate school there. ~ Aleksandra Mir

I'm so extremely well prepared for negative response, I've taken precautions. ~ Aleksandra Mir