Tariq Ali Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

How we live our lives does not, unfortunately depend on us alone.Circumstances, good or bad, constantly intervene.A person close to us die.A person not so close to us carries on living.All these things affect how we live.

Tariq Ali
That natural disasters are required to provide Americans with a glimpse of reality in their own country is an indication of the deep rot infecting the official political culture.

Tariq Ali
This is the permanent tension that lies at the heart of a capitalist democracy and is exacerbated in times of crisis. In order to ensure the survival of the richest, it is democracy that has to be heavily regulated rather than capitalism.

Tariq Ali
Tragedies are always discussed as if they took place in a void, but actually each tragedy is conditioned by its setting, local and global. The events of 11 September 2001 are not exception.

Tariq Ali
Proximity to power has an unsurprising ability to mutate a politician's spinal cord into bright yellow jelly.

Tariq Ali
Even if you reject everything, it is always better to know what it is you are rejecting.

Tariq Ali
For all their incoherence and senseless rage, their message is attractive to those layers of the population who yearn for some order in their lives. If the fanatics promise to feed them and educate their children they are prepared to forgo the delights of CNN and BBC World.

Tariq Ali
We live, after all, in a world where illusions are sacred and truth profane.

Tariq Ali
The government of the US has no moral authority to elect itself as the judge over human rights in Cuba, where there has not been a single case of disappearance, torture or extra-judicial execution since 1959, and where despite the economic blockade, there are levels of health, education and culture that are internationally recognised.

Tariq Ali
To fight tyranny and oppression by using tyrannical and oppressive means, to combat a single-minded and ruthless fanaticism by becoming equally fanatical and ruthless, will not further the cause of justice or bring about a meaningful democracy. It can only prolong the cycle of violence.

Tariq Ali
The past has too much knowledge embedded in it, and therefore it's best to forget it and start anew.

Tariq Ali