Kemal Quotes & Sayings

A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Since Kemal's death, Turkey has been ruled by small minds, unsteady, weak men. — William L. Shirer

In human life, you will find players of religion until the knowledge and proficiency in religion will be cleansed from all superstitions, and will be purified and perfected by the enlightenment of real science. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Where there is no freedom, there is death and destruction. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

In order to stave off covetouness, greed, and spite, citizens world over must be educated. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Justice is the infrastructure of proprietorship. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Authority, without any condition and reservation, belongs to the nation. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

You, the sons and daughters, the future of Turkiye, even under such circumstances and conditions, your duty is to save the Turkish independence and the Republic, you will find the power you need in the noble blood in your veins. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Science is the only true guide in life. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Men, I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. In the time that it takes us to die, other forces and commanders can come and take our place. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Lucky nation is the one who has at least one great progressive revolutionary man in its history! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

A youth with wings are the assurance of our nation's future. We must start to work right away and make progress so that; if one day Westerners leave their footprints on the moon, we shall place a Turkish one among those. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

A ruler who needs religion to help him rule is a weakling. No weakling should rule.. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Mankind is a single body and each nation a part of that body. We must never say "What does it matter to me if some part of the world is ailing?" If there is such an illness, we must concern ourselves with it as though we were having that illness. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The future is in the skies. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

This nation has never lived without independence. We cannot and shall not live without it. Either independence or death. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

These left-overs from the former Young Turk Party, who should have been made to account for the millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred, have been restive under the Republican rule. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable. We are against such a situation and will not allow it. Those who use religion in such a manner have fooled our people; it is against just such people that we have fought and will continue to fight. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

I will lead my people by the hand along the road until their feet are sure and they know the way. Then they may choose for themselves and rule themselves. Then my work will be done. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Sovereignty is not given, it is taken. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Science is the most reliable guide for civilization, for life, for success in the world. Searching a guide other than the science is meaning carelessness, ignorance and heresy. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Our true mentor in life is science. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Harbord and his mission arrived in Sivas on 20 September. They were told by Mustafa Kemal that Turkey realized that it needed the aid of an impartial foreign country. 'After all our experience we are sure that America is the only country able to help us,' Mustafa Kemal acknowledged in a statement on 15 October. — Andrew Mango

The biggest battle is the war against ignorance. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Vision, of the Ittihadists and, by extension, Kemal Ataturk, did not include the non-Muslim population of what was once the Ottoman Empire. — Eric Bogosian

We've come to the point where we're no longer able to protect our national values. Where will it all end? — Kemal Kerincsiz

What a lovely drink this is, it makes one want to be a poet — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives! You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

No matter how rich and prosperous, a nation without independence, cannot be subject to any behaviour before the humanity, at a higher level than serving. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Freedom and independence form my character. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

After visiting the Krupp factories, the Turkish party spent ten days in Berlin, where Vahdettin told a German journalist that women had begun to work in public in Turkey, and that although progress was slow, 'we are making the effort to give equal rights to our women'.88 Mustafa Kemal was not alone in favouring women's emancipation in the Ottoman state. — Andrew Mango

Victory is for those who can say "Victory is mine". Success is for those who can begin saying "I will succeed" and say "I have succeeded" in the end. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Combining valuable insights from his experience in China, his time as the World Bank's chief economist, and the 2008 financial crisis, Justin Yifu Lin's recommendations for development policy reflect an impressive and unique personal journey. — Kemal Dervis

To write history is as important as to make history. It is an unchanging truth that if the writer does not remain true to the maker, then it takes on a quality that will confuse humanity. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Peace at Home, Peace in the World — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Every age has its own way of mythmaking. Ancient Egypt had its myths, the Sumerians and the Assyrians, the Christians and the Muslims, the North and the South
the style of creating myths always varies. What myths are being created as a shelter even in the chaotic atmosphere of today! Until doomsday humanity will create these shelters. What else could people do when they come from one darkness and travel to another? And with so much deprivation? Man remains man so long as he dreams. — Yasar Kemal

Kemal's former opponents in the CUP, all dead by 1930, were resuscitated as heroes in the Turkish national consciousness. — Eric Bogosian

[Turkish women] had lived free of the veil for 5,000 years, and had been covered only in the last 600 years. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Legislation was passed that seemed to welcome any surviving Armenians back to their homes, and at least on paper, Christians and Jews were to be treated like any other citizens in Turkey. But this was a very cold and toxic embrace. The Turkish government was no longer engaged in an organized system of deportation, but with Kemal's endorsement, the ethnic cleansing of Anatolia would continue. — Eric Bogosian

Teachers are the one and only people who save nations. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

A nation which makes the final sacrifice for life and freedom does not get beaten. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

To see me does not necessarily mean to see my face. To understand my thoughts is to have seen me. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

There are two Mustafa Kemals. One the flesh-and-blood Mustafa Kemal who now stands before you and who will pass away. The other is you, all of you here who will go to the far corners of our land to spread the ideals which must be defended with your lives if necessary. I stand for the nation's dreams, and my life's work is to make them come true. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The supreme guide in life is knowledge. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

If a society does not wage a common struggle to attain a common goal with its women and men, scientifically there is no way for it to become civilized or developed. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Those who are inclined to compromise never make a revolution. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Nations which don't find their national identities will be preyed upon by other nations. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

We do not consider our principles as dogmas contained in books that are said to come from heaven. We derive our inspiration, not from heaven, or from an unseen world, but directly from life. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Persons, who knows that, that they will not be able to rest along the way when they took a path, will never get tired. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The reason Ataturk, Kemal Ataturk was and is so highly reputed, is he was attempting to modernize ... That's not the right word. Well, it is. For lack of a better way of saying it, he was trying to make Islam compatible with the modern twentieth century world. — Rush Limbaugh

Freedom and independence is my character. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

If we are to make significant progress on meeting these Goals and stay true to the promise the world made to build a better, fairer world for all, there is no time to lose in putting in place the necessary policies and resources needed to achieve these aims. — Kemal Dervis

My people are going to learn the principles of democracy the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will, every man can follow his own conscience provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow men. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Every nation has the right to demand proper treatment and no country should violate the territory of any other country. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The Turkish language has changed so radically since the time of Kemal's "Nutuk" that a Turk living today would not be able to understand his actual words. The speech literally has to be translated for contemporary Turkish speakers. Most important, any record, history, or document created prior to 1929 is totally unreadable by all Turks — Eric Bogosian

Lasting peace is sought, it is essential to adopt international measures to improve the lot of the masses. The welfare of the entire human race must replace hunger and oppression. People of the world must be taught to give up envy, avarice and rancour. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Sovereignty and the right to rule cannot be conferred on anyone no matter who ... as a result of an academic discussion. Sovereignty is acquired by force and power and violence. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Human kind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies? — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

No country is free unless it is democratic. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Peace at home is peace in the country. Peace in the country is peace in the world. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The struggle within Turkey that continues to this day is the legacy of Kemal Ataturk's radical reformation, — Eric Bogosian

In short, none of the destructive fantasies that have taken possession of leaders in our own age, from Kemal Ataturk to Stalin, from the Khans of the Kremlin to the Kahns of the Pentagon, were foreign to the souls of the divinely appointed founders of the first machine civilization. With every increase of effective power, extravagantly sadistic and murderous impulses erupted out of the unconscious. This is the trauma that has distorted the subsequent development of all 'civilized' societies. And it is this fact that punctuates the entire history of mankind with outbursts of collective paranoia and tribal delusions of grandeur, mingled with malevolent suspicions, murderous hatreds, and atrociously inhumane acts. — Lewis Mumford

Science is the most reliable guide in life. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Concepts of well-being for countries, for peoples and for individuals are changing. In such a world, to argue for rules that never change would be to deny the reality found in scientific knowledge and reasoned judgment. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

I asked him about his enemies. He began to count them. The list went on and on ... - Conversations with Yahya Kemal — Orhan Pamuk

A nation devoid of art and artists cannot have a full existence. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Turkey's true master is the peasant. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The evils which sapped the nation's strength had all been wrought in the name of religion. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

It was when I entered the military preparatory school and put on its uniform, that a feeling of strength came to me, as if I had become master of my own destiny. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

The nation has placed its faith in the precept that all laws should be inspired by actual needs here on earth as a basic fact of national life. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Religion is an important institution. A nation without religion cannot survive. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

Mustafa Kemal drily reminds his co-conspirators that the object is not to die for the revolution, but to live for it. — Louis De Bernieres

Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women. — Mustafa Kemal Ataturk