R/s

Thursday, January 8, 2009
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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A Muslim scholar in Canada has written a book critical of Islam and now lives in fear of assassination.
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It is only natural for those who are part of the problem to pretend not to see the solution.
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Before you attain greatness you must achieve honesty, and of the two, achieving honesty may well be the more demanding enterprise.
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Once upon a time, in the Middle Ages, we were celebrated for being good fighters. We still are, but only against the wrong enemy: ourselves.
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More often than not, it is in our efforts to appear smart that we expose ourselves as fools.
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It makes little sense to support one side against another when both belong to the dustbin of history.
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In all political movements, lust for power is invariably hidden behind noble slogans; the greater the lust, the nobler the slogans.
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Friday, January 9, 2009
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OBSERVATIONS
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To know nothing is better than to know only one side of the story.
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Writing history should be more akin to examining our conscience as opposed to emphasizing the positive and covering up the negative.
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It is not enough for an Armenian to win an argument, he must also annihilate his adversary.
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After three decades of hard work I am now in a position to state with some degree of certainty and pride that I have made more enemies than friends.
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Like most men, computers must be programmed in order to think.
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It makes little sense keeping up with the Joneses if the Joneses are busy keeping up with the Smiths.
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When top dogs don't trust one another, underdogs quarrel among themselves.
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You work hard all your life, you make a fortune, you share your fortune with ingrates who insult you: who says benefactors are better off than scribblers?
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Saturday, January 10, 2009
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REFLECTIONS
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The most visible feature of a nation is not its Golden Age or its celebrities, but its degree of solidarity. No one takes seriously a nation that has been manipulated by the divide-and-rule tactics of other nations for most of its existence.
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To alienate a fraction of the people is to amputate the nation.
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When I said the greatest insult to a writer is to ignore him, they stopped insulting me. If only I could solve all my problems with the same ease.
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“The buck stops here”: the four most un-Armenian words in the English language.
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Do I write because I like to annoy the hell out of dupes, bigots and charlatans?
Why not? Isn’t that as good a reason as any?
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It is not at all unusual for our chauvinists to preach Armenian culture and to practice Ottoman barbarism.
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