While many Islamic countries ...
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All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.
Thích Nhất Hạnh
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.
Quotes from the same author
As Luxenberg's work has only recently been published we must await its scholarly assessment before we can pass any judgements. But if his analysis is correct then suicide bombers, or rather prospective martyrs, would do well to abandon their culture of death, and instead concentrate on getting laid 72 times in this world, unless of course they would really prefer chilled or white raisins, according to their taste, in the next.
Ibn Warraq
Because of its exceptional capacity for self-criticism, the West took the initiative in abolishing slavery; the calls for abolition did not resonate even in black Africa, where rival African tribes took black prisoners to be sold as slaves in the West.
Ibn Warraq
Surprisingly one of the forces for secularisation was Christianity itself. As soon as it accepted the idea of a contrary opinion, the moment that European opinion decided for toleration, it decided for eventual free marketing opinion.
Ibn Warraq
The great ideas of the West - rationalism, self-criticism, the disinterested search for truth, the separation of church and state, the rule of law, equality before the law, freedom of conscience, thought, and expression, human rights, and liberal democracy- quite an achievement, surely, for any civilization- - remain the best, and perhaps the only, means for all people, no matter of what race or creed, to reach their full potential and live in freedom.
Ibn Warraq
The West has given us the liberal miracle of individual rights, individual responsibility, merit, and human satisfaction.
Ibn Warraq