Mahathir Mohamad Best Quotes & Sayings

Some people find no comfort in the prophets' vision of a future world. "The church has used that line for centuries to justify slavery, oppression, and all manner of injustice," they say. The criticism sticks because the church has abused the prophets' vision. But you will never find that "pie in the sky" rationale in the prophets themselves. They have scathing words about the need to care for widows and orphans and aliens, and to clean up corrupt courts and religious systems. The
people of God are not merely to mark time, waiting for God to step in and set right all that is wrong. Rather, they are to model the new heaven and new earth, and by so doing awaken longings for what God will someday bring to pass. — Philip Yancey

But I understood Bear Otto's desire to become a noble man, a man like Billy Ansel, and I respected that, naturally. I just wished the boy had more ways of imagining the thing than by becoming a good soldier. But that's boys, I guess. — Russell Banks

I not only think but also look and study things carefully. When I travel around, I look at things carefully, make comparisons of what I see. I don't accept things at face value, you cannot trust what you hear or see. Don't jump to conclusions without thinking. — Mahathir Mohamad

I'm brash and abrasive but that's because I've noticed when people are nice and polite they never get anywhere. — Mahathir Mohamad

Once started, religious strife has a tendency to go on and on - to become permanent feuds. Today we see such intractable inter-religious wars in Northern Ireland, between Jews and Muslims and Christians in Palestine, Hindus and Muslims in South Asia and in many other places. Attempts to bring about peace have failed again and again. Always the extremist elements invoking past injustices, imagined or real, will succeed in torpedoing the peace efforts and bringing about another bout of hostility. — Mahathir Mohamad

The judgment, handed down by Judge Ian Chin of the Sarawak High Court, demonstrated astonishing independence from the Malaysian government. Chin knew the price of that independence. After a much-maligned judgment against a politician belonging to the ruling Barisan National government in 1998, he had been verbally threatened by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, and then enrolled in a five-day boot camp with other judges for "re-educational" purposes. While there, the primacy of the government's interests was hammered into the judicial civil servants.3 Crushing the independence of the courts was done systematically under Mahathir. In 1988, the autocratic Premier had arbitrarily dismissed the country's top judge, Lord President Salleh Abas, thereby keeping the remaining judges on a short lead.4 Even today, in 2014, Malaysia's judges still have difficulty ruling independently when government interests are at stake. — Lukas Straumann

I'm a fundamentalist in the true sense. That is to say, I follow the fundamentals of religion ... But for over 1,400 years people have been interpreting and re-interpreting the religion to suit their own purpose! ... These [extremist and terrorist acts] are not Islamic fundamentals any more than the Christians who burned people at the stake are fundamentalist. They are actually deviating from the teachings of the religion! — Mahathir Mohamad

Without in any way minimising the economic and psychological blow that people experience when they lose their jobs, the unemployed in affluent countries still have a safety net, in the form of social security payments, and usually free healthcare and free education for their children. They also have sanitation and safe drinking water. — Peter Singer

We need an opposition to remind us if we are making mistakes. When you are not opposed you think everything you do is right. — Mahathir Mohamad

I think music can heal your soul if you'll let it. It can also bring you up if you're down. It can also bring you down if you're too up. It's a mood thing. — Gretchen Wilson

The Malays are spiritually inclined, tolerant and easy-going. The non-Malays, and especially the Chinese, are materialistic, aggressive and have an appetite for work. For equality to come about, it is necessary that these strikingly contrasting races adjust to each other. — Mahathir Mohamad

Developing countries like Malaysia should have a say in changing the world financial system since we have faced the problems that it has caused. — Mahathir Mohamad

It is not society itself that the Epicurean recoils from; it is this society of unceasing struggle for more and more. — Luke Slattery

Currency trading is unnecessary, unproductive and totally immoral. It should be stopped. — Mahathir Mohamad

I always loved having the chance to disappear in a story. I always was kind of obsessed with that. — Liya Kebede

Some people say that we here have no freedom of religion, ... In reality, the people in that country are the ones who were forced to embrace a religion. — Mahathir Mohamad

Science is global. Einstein's equation, E=mc2, has to reach everywhere. Science is a beautiful gift to humanity, we should not distort it. Science does not differentiate between multiple races. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

If you can't be famous, at least you can be notorious. — Mahathir Mohamad

From being a female sunk below reproach Sophy became rapidly an unconventional girl whose unaffected manners were refreshing in an age of simpers and high flights. — Georgette Heyer

I cannot keep quiet even when I am a lone voice. — Mahathir Mohamad

History should remember Blair and Bush as the killers of children or as the lying prime minister and president. — Mahathir Mohamad

Knowledge has always been important, of course. The ancient Egyptians did not raise the stones for the pyramids relying on the incantations of their gods. The waters in the irrigation canals of the great Indus Civilisation did not flow according to the laws of ignorance. Knowledge has always been power and wealth. — Mahathir Mohamad

Cool is spent. Cool is empty. Cool is ex post facto. When advertisers and pundits hoard a word, you know it's time to retire from it. To move on. I want to suggest, therefore, that we begin to avoid cool now. Cool is a trick to get you to buy garments made by sweatshop laborers in Third World countries. Cool is the Triumph of the Will. Cool enables you to step over bodies. Cool enables you to look the other way. Cool makes you functional, eager for routine distraction, passive, doped, stupid. — Rick Moody

For every individual who really is exceptional there are about fifty thousand who just imagine they are - until it's too late, and they find out they aren't after all. — Gwethalyn Graham