Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar Quotes & Sayings

The Muslim East has been in a defensive posture for centuries. Take Turkey. For a period of close to two hundred years, we've been living through phases of vital self-defense and security. In such a society, a fortress mentality naturally arises. If today we've lost the concept of freedom, the reason is that we're living in a state of siege." Suad — Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

But, Doctor, I'm not ill. Good God! I've told you everything".
Again his fixed his eyes on mine and stopped me, his voice full of resolve.
"You are ill. It is the fate we all share since the birth of psychoanalysis". — Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

For as Dostoyevsky warned, "No nation on earth, no society with a certain measure of stability, has been developed to order, on the lines of a program imported from abroad. — Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar

I fear that those who see freedom solely as a political concept will never fully grasp its meaning. The political pursuit of freedom can lead to its eradication on a grand scale - or rather it opens the door to countless curtailments. — Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar