Nazim Quotes

Don't live in the world as if you were renting or here only for the summer, but act as if it was your father's house ... Believe in seeds, earth, and the sea, but people above all. Love clouds, machines, and books, but people above all. Nazim Hikmet, 20th century Turkish poet ~ Nahid Rachlin

Standing in Front of the Mirror of Eternity
Dressed By True Existence
Looking to Your Own Reality
In the Ocean of Oneness ~ Sheikh Nazim Al-Haqqani

There are reasons to be sad, disconsolate, bitter, but there is not a single reason to be hopeless. ~ Nazim Hikmet

Your silence will never protect you,
Indeed, Silence is the ultimate weapon of power,
but It destroy us first ... ~ Sahil Nazim

I know you can't wash in the same river even once
I know the river will bring new lights that you will not see
I know we live slightly longer than a horse and not nearly as long as a crow
I know this has troubled people before and will trouble those after me
I know all this has been said a thousand times before and will be said after me
I didn't know I like the sky
cloudy or clear
the blue vault that Andrei watched on his back on the battlefield at Borodino
... ~ Nazim Hikmet

Loneliness feels like prison. ~ Nazim Hikmet

Every opportunity has challenges and when you overcome it, it turns to rewards. ~ Nazim Ambalath

However and wherever we are, we must live as if we will never die. ~ Nazim Hikmet

My country or the stars Or my youth, what's farthest? ~ Nazim Hikmet

At eighteen you don't think about memories, you tell them. ~ Nazim Hikmet

Thinking of you is pretty, hopeful,
It is like listening to the most beautiful song
From the most beautiful voice on earth ...
But hope is not enough for me any more,
I don't want to listen to songs any more,
I want to sing. ~ Nazim Hikmet

To visit a museum is fine,
to be a museum piece is terrible!

- Gioconda and Si-Ya-U ~ Nazim Hikmet

…in the twentieth century
grief lasts at most a year.'

I have used this quote from the Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet as a prelude to a small tale before I go on to the War in iraq. The reason I chose to use this quote is because I wonder how long grief lasts in the twenty-first century. Is it now a month? Two weeks? Or just enough time for the television cameras to record it and then it's over? I don't know. ~ Saeed Akhtar Mirza

We can only reach our goal amid bloodletting ~ Nazim Hikmet

Separation isn't time or distance
it's the bridge between us
finer than silk thread sharper than swords ~ Nazim Hikmet

Without ethics, a human race falls to inhumanity. Ethics determines your real value in this world and the hereafter. ~ Nazim Ambalath

I come and stand at every door
But none can hear my silent tread
I knock and yet remain unseen
For I am dead for I am dead

I'm only seven though I died
In Hiroshima long ago
I'm seven now as I was then
When children die they do not grow

My hair was scorched by swirling flame
My eyes grew dim my eyes grew blind
Death came and turned my bones to dust
And that was scattered by the wind

I need no fruit I need no rice
I need no sweets nor even bread
I ask for nothing for myself
For I am dead for I am dead

All that I need is that for peace
You fight today you fight today
So that the children of this world
Can live and grow and laugh and play

- The Girl Child ~ Nazim Hikmet

And don't forget, a prisoner's wife must always think good thoughts. ~ Nazim Hikmet

That's how it goes, my friend. The problem is not falling a captive, it's how to avoid surrender. ~ Nazim Hikmet

Welcome baby it's your turn to live they're laying for you chicken pox whooping cough smallpox malaria TB heart disease cancer and so on unemployment hunger and so on train wrecks bus accidents plane crashes on-the-job injuries earthquakes floods droughts and so on heartbreak alcoholism and so on nightsticks prisons doors and so on they're laying for you the atom bomb and so on welcome baby it's your turn to live they're laying for you socialism communism and so on. ~ Nazim Hikmet

RESPECT. GIVE IT FIRST TO GET IT. ~ Nazim Ambalath

The most beautiful sea
hasn't been crossed yet.
The most beautiful child
hasn't grown up yet.
The most beautiful days
we haven't seen yet.
And the most beautiful words I wanted to tell you
I haven't said yet ... ~ Nazim Hikmet

LET'S GIVE THE WORLD TO THE CHILDREN
Let's give the world to the children just for one day
like a balloon in bright and striking colours to play with
let them play singing among the stars
let's give the world to the children
like a huge apple like a warm loaf of bread
at least for one day let them have enough
let's give the world to the children
at least for one day let the world learn friendship
children will get the world from our hands
they'll plant immortal trees ~ Nazim Hikmet

You don't have to roar again; In your silence, listen to your courageous inner voice say 'I will go and do it gain. ~ Nazim Ambalath

The life of man is long, perhaps longer than necessary Or perhaps it is shorter than necessary? ~ Nazim Hikmet

Failure is a merely an opinion, success is the reaction. ~ Nazim Ambalath

We'll dive into the earth together. And if one day a wild flower finds water and springs up from that piece of earth, its stem will have two blooms for sure: one will be you, the other me. ~ Nazim Hikmet

I'm only seven, although I died In Hiroshima long ago, I'm seven now as I was then - When children die, they do not grow. ~ Nazim Hikmet

Implement an outstanding idea to yield you back a priceless life. ~ Nazim Ambalath