Ali A Quotes & Sayings

If what you achieve today is equal to what you achieved yesterday, then you are at a loss. And if what you have achieved today is less than what you achieved yesterday, then you are deprived from the Almighty's blessings. Anyone who is not progressing, is in fact regressing, and if you are regressing, then you might as well be dead. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

I feel really lucky that, in my career, I've gotten a chance to explore a lot of different genres and kinds of films. — Ali Larter

My father then presented Honour with a cheque,

"This is from our family for you, only you. Put it in a bank and if my son ever treats you badly, use this to leave the idiot," he said.

I was laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes.

The haque mehr was traditionally given to the bride on the wedding day by the groom, it was an amount that would be hers for her lifetime to keep in case things went wrong and she needed to stand on her own two feet.

Dad had done his little trickery, and in his head and everyone else's, we had done all that was required from a nikah. — Ruth Ahmed

I used to love Kapil Dev and, like any schoolboy, wanted to become a cricketer till I started dreaming of making movies. — Imtiaz Ali

If I have a day off, I want to get on a plane and go to Paris! If I have a couple hours off work, I want to run to the market and make a four-course meal. I like to do things that are unexpected. — Ali Larter

Fate is an ugly bitch that hates you with a passion. — Ali Parker

Courtesy costs nothing, but buys everything. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S

Yes, I tried to change the classical style in a way that people who don't understand it can enjoy. — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

I'm not the 'look at me' kind of a person. I do not like showing off in public or written about. — Imtiaz Ali

The term 'racism' was coined in the 1930s, primarily as a response to the Nazi project of making Germany judenrein, or 'clean of Jews'. The — Ali Rattansi

I hope that's a good thing,' I said, thinking he might say I reminded him of a film star- then we'd actually have something in common. I was hoping for Anne Hathaway or Julia Roberts, and not the obvious Vivien Leigh. Even Angelina Jolie would have done, though I'd never quite forgiven her for stealing Brad's heart. Talking of Brad, was Sean starting to resemble him too? No, he could never be a Brad, a Matthew McConaughey maybe at a push, but never a Brad Pitt. — Ali McNamara

Mohamed Ali also had a way with words, but it helped enormously that he could also punch guys in the face. — Bill Maher

In a well-functioning democracy, the state constitution is considered more important than God's holy book, whichever holy book that may be, and God matters only in your private life. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The nourishment of body is food, while the nourishment of the soul is feeding others. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S

Casey doesn't trust him."
"Casey doesn't trust anyone," I replied. "He's paranoid like that. I mean, come on, he's a werewolf who installed a nanny cam in his kids' room." I pointed my spoon at Ali for emphasis. "A nanny cam. — Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Nothing hurts a good soul and a kind heart more than to live amongst people who cannot understand it. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S

We open a book, we turn a newspaper page, we allow the television and the radio to come into our homes. All the things we are told every day - are the true? — Monica Ali

Sinking, sinking, drinking water. When everyone in the village was fasting a long month,when not a grain, not a drop of water passed between the parched lips of any able-bodied man, woman or child over the age of ten, when the sun was hotter than the cooking pot and dusk was just a febrile wish, the hypocrite went down to the pond to duck his head, to dive and sink, to drink and sink a little lower. p. 105 — Monica Ali

That Iran is willing to threaten Israel is wrong[ ... ] We pose no threat and if we are conducting nuclear research and development we are no threat to Israel. We have no intention of aggression against any country. [ ... ] Today we announce to you that the political will of Iran is aimed at the negotiated settlement of the case and we dont want to aggravate the situation in our region[ ... ] We know that this issue can be settled in a constructive dialogue and we welcome that. — Ali Larijani

Many well-meaning Dutch people have told me in all earnestness that nothing in Islamic culture incites abuse of women, that this is just a terrible misunderstanding. Men all over the world beat their women, I am constantly informed. In reality, these Westerners are the ones who misunderstand Islam. The Quaran mandates these punishments. It gives a legitimate basis for abuse, so that the perpetrators feel no shame and are not hounded by their conscience of their community. I wanted my art exhibit to make it difficult for people to look away from this problem. I wanted secular, non-Muslim people to stop kidding themselves that Islam is peace and tolerance. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The world badly needs more peaceful and loving men like Sri Chinmoy. I am a Muslim and he is serving all people of peace. Sri Chinmoy is doing so much for the world, for people of all faiths, because of his own peace and faith. — Muhammad Ali

People quickly look through things and don't sit and experience. That's a problem with artwork, [because] it's more of an experience than something to quickly look at. It takes a while for everything to unveil itself. — Ali Banisadr

Iran welcomes dialogue with any other states. I wrote a letter to the three European states inviting them to resume talks, but, they cancelled it. They had thought that Iran would no longer resume talks with them. — Ali Larijani

Painting is a way of thinking visually, so whatever is happening with me at the time gets reflected in the work. — Ali Banisadr

Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I saw a mother who lose his country, city, home and children, but she had hijab between corpses. — Ali Rezavand Zayeri

But I suspect the reported number of good novels this year is a result of 9/11 and all the other alarums of recent years. I think it set a certain gear into movement, unseen, silent, at the heart of many writers. Writers with children, writers with that hope of a peaceful century; a sort of literary battle stations. I was not surprised to hear Ali Smith describe her wonderful book The Accidental as a war book.
Sebastian Barry, in interview with TMO (2005) — Sebastian Barry

Sister Aziza told us about the Jews. She described them in such a way that I imagined them as physically monstrous: they had horns on their heads, and noses so large they stuck right out of their faces like great beaks. Devils and djinns literally flew out of their heads to mislead Muslims and spread evil. Everything that went wrong was the fault of the Jews. The Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein, who had attacked the Islamic Revolution in Iran, was a Jew. The Americans, who were giving money to Saddam, were controlled by the Jews. The Jews controlled the world, and that was why we had to be pure: to resist this evil influence. Islam was under attack, and we should step forward and fight the Jews, for only if all Jews were destroyed would peace come for Muslims. I — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When one stops working at the height of one's career, it's just stupid not to say, 'I want to make sure I have a house.' — Ali MacGraw

As for this young Ali, one cannot but like him. A noble-minded creature, as he shows himself, now and always afterwards; full of affection, of fiery daring. Something chivalrous in him; brave as a lion; yet with a grace, a truth and affection worthy of Christian knighthood. — Edward Gibbon

The emaan of a person cannot be true until he has more trust in that which is in Allah's Hands than that which is in his own hands. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

Week 34:
Write a love letter to yourself, and then give yourself to someone as special. — Ali Marsman

I never got into using my phone's calendar. It's easier to write in my Tiffany day planner. There's something charming about having a datebook. — Ali Larter

A girl is a good deed and a boy is a bounty. Good deeds are rewarded while people are held accountable for bounties. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

I'm not much of cook, but I cook a mean bowl of oatmeal. — Mahershala Ali

He'd been an odd one, that boy with the camera. Such a distinctive physique: pale skin so taut on his skeleton, holding himself with a shy hunch, not ugly as such but certainly not handsome, with a demeanor eager to cause no trouble, to attract no attention. — Ali Shaw

Fitzgerald and the FBI agents who worked with him in New York all knew that Ali Mohamed was working for al-Qaeda. They decided to arrest him then and there. Two years later, he pleaded guilty in open court to serving as bin Laden's first deep-penetration agent in America and a key conspirator in the embassy bombings. Then the United States made him vanish; no record of his imprisonment exists. He was an embarrassment to the FBI. — Tim Weiner

Each thinking mind is a political mind — Zaman Ali

If they lived in Saudi Arabia, under Shari'a law, these college girls in their pretty scarves wouldn't be free to study, to work, to drive, to walk around. In Saudi Arabia girls their age and younger are confined, are forced to marry, and if they have sex outside of marriage they are sentenced to prison and flogged. According to the Quran, their husband is permitted to beat them and decide whether they may work or even leave the house; he may marry other women without seeking their approval, and if he chooses to divorce them, they have no right to resist or to keep custody of their children. Doesn't this matter at all to these clever young Muslim girls in America? — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

I am a keen observer of my own films; I also try to discover myself through the movies I make. — Imtiaz Ali

I have tried to make the music a bit easier for them to understand. — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

The government is asleep - there is a big administrative corruption everywhere in its institutions — Ibrahim Ali

Talking about morality can be offensive. Morality is a politically incorrect subject. Many people are genuinely offended if someone speaks of morality and family values. It is okay if you talk about your sexual fantasies and deviances. This is called "liberation". But you would be frowned at if you talk about morality in public. Then you'd be accused of trying to impose your values on others. — Ali Sina

I was called to audition for a play when I was very young, following which I continued to act as well as write and direct. When I moved to Delhi and joined Hindu College, theatre became a very big part of my life. — Imtiaz Ali

The Enlightenment attacked religion - Christianity, mainly - for two reasons: that it was a set of ideological delusions, and that it was a system of institutional oppression, with immense powers of persecution and intolerance. — Tariq Ali

Culture is the celebration of diversity. Let us therefore not deny our origin; but instead celebrate ours as a cultural mosaic not a tower of Babel , but a power of Babel — Ali A. Mazrui

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. — Muhammad Ali

When trying to explain the violent path of some Islamists, Western commentators sometimes blame harsh economic conditions, dysfunctional family circumstances, confused identity, the generic alienation of young males, a failure to integrate into the larger society, mental illness, and so on. Some on the Left insist that the real fault lies with the mistakes of American foreign policy.
None of this is convincing. Jihad in the twenty-first century is not a problem of poverty, insufficient education, or any other social precondition. (Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was earning more than $90,000 a year working for a drilling company in British Columbia, where he also reportedly proclaimed his support of the Taliban and joked about suicide bombing vests, with no repercussions.) We must move beyond such facile explanations. The imperative for jihad is embedded in Islam itself. It is a religious obligation. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A girl sat neatly on a flat rock. Somehow he'd not seen her. She looked like she'd stepped through the screen of a 1950s movie. Her skin and blond hair were such pale shades they looked monochrome. Her long coat was tied at the waist by a fabric belt. She was probably a few years younger than him, in her early twenties, wearing a white hat with matching gloves. "Sorry," she said, "If I surprised you." Her irises were titanium gray, her most striking feature. Her lips were an afterthought and her cheekbones flat. But her eyes ... He realized he was staring into them and quickly looked away. — Ali Shaw

There are a million ways of arriving at a performance, any number of them solid. — Ali Farahnakian

I've always loved independent music stores because the staff is usually there because of a genuine love and appreciation for music. They're more in-tune with the customers and I'm willing to pay the extra dollar or two for the service they provide. Some of my greatest music discoveries have come from picking up an album at an indy store and the cat behind the register saying "You like this man? Have you heard of so-and-so?" I prefer to shop where people understand me and the music- the music i like. — Brother Ali

Let's play a little game I like to call Cole's in Charge and Ali's Not. — Gena Showalter

Her voice was erudite, interesting; the voice of someone who straddled two cultures with a surety and style that I wished my boyfriend could find. She was smart, funny, and, above all, completely capable of controlling her life and what happened to it. — Ruth Ahmed

Many a spoken word is more piercing than an attack. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

UNDAUNTED PURSUIT
Success, however measured, is the seat of a stool with three legs of determination, focus and resilience — Kamil Ali

A fool's mind is at the mercy of his tongue and a wise man's tongue is under the control of
his mind. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib

Failure is a word unknown to me. — Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Dr. Barazon had maintained that Elfriede would not have needed to provide an Aryan cover for the real author of Ali and Nino, because the book contract was signed in April 1937, almost a full year before the Nazi Anschluss of Austria. — Tom Reiss

Work for a Better Life as if you live forever,
And work for Better End as if you die tomorrow — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

Wealth converts a strange land into homeland and poverty turns a native place into a
strange land. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib

I was a Muslim once, remember, and it was when I was most devout that I was most full of hate. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

A friend cannot be considered a friend until he is tested in three occasions: in timeof need, behind your back, and after your death. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

To be a qawwal is more than being a performer, more than being an artist,One must be willing to release one's mind and soul from one's body to achieve ecstasy through music. Qawwali is enlightenment itself. — Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan

I did not choose necessarily on the basis of significance. If you have a vote for the most significant athlete, then you have Ali, then you have Babe Ruth, then you have Michael Jordan. — Dick Schaap

The first duty of a government is to maintain law and order so that the life, property, and religious beliefs of its subjects are fully protected by the State. — Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Most people don't pray until they're in trouble.
When people need help they pray a lot.
But after they get what they want, they slow down.
If a man takes five showers a day, his body will be clean.
Praying five times a day helps me clean my mind. — Muhammad Ali

He that is purified by love is pure; and he that is absorbed in the Beloved and hath abandoned all else is a Sufi.
Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah. — Idries Shah

I would find tiny flowers left by somebody else, and I would know Honour had been to London. I only felt a bit sad she hadn't let me know and met up with me.

She didn't mention anything when I went to Kent at the weekends either.

It was what it was. — Ruth Ahmed

I went to see President Nixon at the White House. It wasn't difficult to get a meeting because I was heavyweight champion of the world. So I came to Washington and walked around the garden with Nixon, his wife and daughter. I said: I want you to give Ali his licence back. I want to beat him up for you. — Joe Frazier

I still can't believe [ Muhammad Ali ] knows my name. It astounds me he knows who I am. I first met Ali in 1976. I was locked up in a juvenile home and he came to visit. I've never forgotten it. — Mike Tyson

I cannot tell a lie. It was me who
chopped down the cherry tree. Now that
I've been so honest, make me a
precedent. No, not president. I said
precedent. — Ali Smith

I grew up watching Lindsay and it made me want to do what she does. Just the whole vibe. Being there, being on camera, or on stage, with everybody listening to you it's so cool when people look up to you. I've already been asked for my autograph and it's just a really good feeling to have. — Ali Lohan

But for now he was alone and hurt and broken on the ground, the man, gravely wounded. Worse, he knew himself a fool, knew himself a loser, knew himself too late, and defeated, ruined by his own hand, near to death.
It was the end and then this happened. The wound in his chest, red and burning, open like an eye, an ear, a mouth, began to glow.
It glowed and warmed until it embered him. Flowers closest to where he lay started to wilt in the heat of it. But inside the man, the heat changed into something else. The first thing he felt it become was courage and the next thing was desire.
They went through him, but with a roughness he'd never known. Then instead of in pain he was thirsty, but with a thirst he'd never known. The heat and the glow and the thirst combined and melted the man into someone he'd never been.
He heard a noise. It was the roar of water.
Up he got off the ground to go and sort himself out. — Ali Smith

I was really involved with other people's opinions of me, and it got heightened during my film career. I don't have any opinion, good or bad about it, it just was. It's not the way I feel now, and I think yoga has a lot to do with that. — Ali MacGraw

If men could menstruate ... clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event: Men would brag about how long and how much.... Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammed Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields - "For Those Light Bachelor Days." Gloria Steinem — Sawyer King

This was not an attack by a mentally deranged, lone-wolf gunman. This was not an 'un-Islamic' attack by a bunch of thugs - the perpetrators could be heard shouting that they were avenging the Prophet Muhammad. Nor was it spontaneous. It was planned to inflict maximum damage, during a staff meeting, with automatic weapons and a getaway plan. It was designed to sow terror, and in that it has worked. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

He was clearly in love with Amber too, and this time it wasn't the usual water off the back of the duck. Instead, the duck, wounded by a hunter and bewildered because half its head had been shot way, and was still tottering about on its webby feet by the side of the pond. From the one side it looked like a duck usually looks. From the other, it was a different story. — Ali Smith

Ralph Miliband was a socialist intellectual of great integrity. He belonged to a generation of socialists formed by the Russian revolution and the Second World War, a generation that dominated left-wing politics for almost a century. — Tariq Ali

In 2010, I suggested that if you are a good Muslim with a good conscience, go and look for a better God, and I think that was juvenile of me. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

But when a faithful Muslim is alone by himself, he is not lonely. As a matter of fact being alone is prized by faithful Muslims. There is a Hadith from Imam Sajjad (A.S.) in which the Imam is quoted as saying: 'If all between the East and West were to die, I would not feel lonely as long as the Qur'an was with me. — Mohammad Ali Shomali

He was the most beautiful boy I had ever seen in my life. But he really looked like a girl. She was the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen in my life. — Ali Smith

Islam is not a set of rules. It's a way of seeing life and the world. — Nouman Ali Khan

You made a big mistake by letting me come, because now I'm going after your job — Muhammad Ali

I want to be a person who makes a quiet difference. — Ali MacGraw

What shop did this book come from? she asked. Her father was looking worried at the cooker. He always got rice wrong. I don't know, Brooksie, he said, I don't remember. That was unimaginable, not remembering where a book has come from! and where it was bought from! That was part of the whole history, the whole point, of any book that you owned! And when you picked it up later in the house at home, you knew, you just knew by looking and having it in your hand, where it came from and where you got it and when and why you'd decided to buy it. — Ali Smith

Not to have a thing is less humiliating than to beg it. — Hazrat Ali Ibn Abu-Talib A.S

I can drown a drink of water. I can kill a dead tree. Don't mess with Muhammad Ali. — Muhammad Ali

Scheffer said a new ethnic underclass of immigrants had formed, and it was much too insular, rejecting the values that knit together Dutch society and creating new, damaging social divisions. There wasn't enough insistence on immigrants adapting; teachers even questioned the relevance of teaching immigrant children Dutch history, and a whole generation of these children were being written off under a pretence of tolerance. Scheffer said there was no place in Holland for a culture that rejected the separation of church and state and denied rights to women and homosexuals. He foresaw social unrest. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Daniel is asleep. A care assistant, a different one today is swishingaroundthe room with a mop that smells of pine cleaner.

Elisabeth wonders what's doing to happen to all the care assistants. She realizes she hasn't so far encountered a single care assistant here who isn't from somewhere else in the world. That morning on the radio she;d heard a spokesperson say, but it's not just that we;ve been rhetorically and practically encouraging the opposite of integration for immigrants to this country. It's that we've been rhetorically and practically encouraging ourselves not to integrate. We've been doing this as a matter of self-policing since Thatcher taught us to be selfish and not just to think but to believe that there's no such thing as society.

Then the other spokesperson in the dialogue said, well, you would say that. Get over it. Grow up. Your time's over. Democracy. You lost. — Ali Smith

Boxing is a stepping stone just to introduce me to the audience. If I was still in Louisville, Kentucky and never was a boxer I still might get killed next week in some kind of freedom struggle and you'd ever hear the news. — Muhammad Ali

If I could have a special power in real life I'd love to fly. — Ali Larter

Lower your gaze because you become less of a human every time you stare at a woman and you stare at her like she's a piece of meat, like she's an animal. That just means you've lost respect for a fellow human being. You're looking at her like an ape looks at a female ape, like a dog looks at a female dog.That's all, you've turned into an animal. Regain your humanity. Lower your gaze. — Nouman Ali Khan

The wiser a man is, the less talkative will he be. — Ali Ibn Abi Talib

[Taken from a BBC documentary]
Tariq was born in Lahore, now in Pakistan, then part of British-ruled India, in 1943. A Catholic school education did nothing to shake his life-long atheism, which he shared with his communist parents. — Tariq Ali

I'd gotten the message in my home, starting with my grandfather, that real work, the kind that makes you sweat and gets your hands dirty, is a respectable, necessary thing. But I wanted to write - and writing didn't qualify. Whenever I told my parents I dreamed of becoming a writer, they said, 'Great, but what are you going to do for work?' — Ali Liebegott

The power of the artform is stronger than stone, the poet says, and chooses the sonnet, a form concerned with argument and persuasion, to say so. This sonnet, he says, will last longer than any gravestone-and you'll be made shinier, brighter, by it. In this form it will-and therefore you will-avoid destruction by war, history, time generally; it'll even keep you alive after death; in fact it'll form a place for you to live, not die, where you'll be seen in the eyes of and the context of this love right to the end of time. — Ali Smith

When Allah grants us the sense to ask Him for forgiveness, then He has granted us a huge favor. It's a sign that He wants to forgive us. — Nouman Ali Khan

When I was a child I burnt the back of my right hand on a hot iron.

I can't recall the pain, but there's an eye-shaped scar as testament to it. As a teenager I used to think it was the all seeing eye of the anti-Christ and that I was the devil incarnate. Or at least a minion.

It was my right hand, innit?

What I do remember though is my father, or Dad as we called him, abandoning the polite Abbu, telling me not to cry and to be patient because the fires of hell were seventy times hotter than the fire of the iron. — Ruth Ahmed

The danger of leaving overwhelming wealth and power in the grasp of a small minority is a lesson that leaders such as ousted Tunisian president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak have learned a little too late, as the demonstrations across the Arab world indicate. — Graydon Carter

Say someone tells me their name - that name can turn into a taste or a color and that's how I categorize it in my mind. It's an easy way of categorizing things. — Ali Banisadr