Edward Said Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Much as I have no wish to hurt anyone's feelings, my first obligation has not been to be nice but to be true to my perhaps peculiar memories, experiences and feelings.

  Edward Said

  Hurt, Memories, Nice

  Edward W. Said (2013). “Out Of Place: A Memoir”, p.1929, Granta Books

  12 Copy quote

• I have never known what is Arabic or English, or which one was really mine beyond any doubt. What I do know, however, is that the two have always been together in my life, one resonating in the other, sometimes ironically, sometimes nostalgically, most often each correcting, and commenting on, the other. Each can seem like my absolutely first language, but neither is.

  Edward Said

  Two, Doubt, Together

  Edward W. Said (2013). “Out Of Place: A Memoir”, p.1931, Granta Books

  57 Copy quote

• I don't remember when exactly I read my first comic book, but I do remember exactly how liberated and subversive I felt as a result.

  Edward Said

  Book, Firsts, Remember

  24 Copy quote

• I have been unable to live an uncommitted or suspended life. I have not hesitated to declare my affiliation with an extremely unpopular cause.

  Edward Said

  Causes, Affiliation, Uncommitted

  Silvia Nagy, Edward W. Said (2006). “Paradoxical Citizenship: Edward Said”, p.209, Lexington Books

  26 Copy quote

• They [root causes of terror] come out of a long dialectic of U.S. involvement in the affairs of the Islamic world, the oil-producing world, the Arab world, the Middle East - those areas that are considered to be essential to U.S. interests and security.

  Edward Said

  Islamic, Oil, Roots

  Source: www.progressive.org

  53 Copy quote

• What is quite worrisome is the absence of analysis and reflection. Take the word "terrorism." It has become synonymous now with anti-Americanism, which, in turn, has become synonymous with being critical of the United States, which, in turn, has become synonymous with being unpatriotic. That's an unacceptable series of equations.

  Edward Said

  Reflection, United States, Analysis

  Source: www.progressive.org

  26 Copy quote

• In short, Israel is the measure of our failings and our incompetence. We have waited for a great leader for years, but none came; we have waited for a mighty military victory, but we were defeated roundly; we have waited for outside powers (the United States or, in its time, the Soviet Union), but none came to our aid. The one thing we have not tried in all seriousness has been to rely on OURSELVES: until we do that with a full commitment to success there is no chance that we can advance towards self-determination and freedom from aggression.

  Edward Said

  Determination, Military, Commitment

  "The End of the Peace Process: Oslo and After".

  78 Copy quote

• I am for peace. And I am for a negotiated peace. But this accord is not a just peace.

  Edward Said

  Accord, Global Issues

  Edward W. Said, Amritjit Singh, Bruce G. Johnson (2004). “Interviews with Edward W. Said”, p.117, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  52 Copy quote

• But I do not know whether the photograph can, or does, say things as they really are. Something has been lost. But the representation is all we have.

  Edward Said

  Doe, Photograph, Lost

  Edward W. Said (2007). “The Edward Said Reader”, p.290, Vintage

  21 Copy quote

• In the Islamic world, the U.S. is seen in two quite different ways. One view recognizes what an extraordinary country the U.S. is.The other view is of the official United States, the United States of armies and interventions. The United States that in 1953 overthrew the nationalist government of Mossadegh in Iran and brought back the shah. The United States that has been involved first in the Gulf War and then in the tremendously damaging sanctions against Iraqi civilians. The United States that is the supporter of Israel against the Palestinians.

  Edward Said

  Country, War, Islamic

  Source: www.progressive.org

  43 Copy quote

• [One task of intellectuals is] to break down the stereotypes and reductive categories that are . . . limiting to human thought and communication.

  Edward Said

  Communication, Tasks, Stereotype

  Source: www.publicanthropology.org

  4 Copy quote

• Theory is taught so as to make the student believe that he or she can become a Marxist, a feminist, an Afrocentrist, or a deconstructionist with about the same effort and commitment required in choosing items from a menu.

  Edward Said

  Believe, Commitment, Feminist

  Edward W Said (2014). “Culture And Imperialism”, p.389, Random House

  11 Copy quote

• ... the connection between imperial politics and culture is astonishingly direct. American attitudes to American "greatness", to hierarchies of race, to the perils of "other" revolutions (the American revolution being considered unique and somehow unrepeatable anywhere else in the world) have remained constant, have dictated, have obscured, the realities of empire, while apologists for overseas American interests have insisted on American innocence, doing good, fighting for freedom.

  Edward Said

  Attitude, Fighting, Reality

  29 Copy quote

• Appeals to the past are among the commonest of strategies in interpretations of the present.

  Edward Said

  Past, Strategy, Interpretation

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• Look at situations as contingent, not as inevitable, look at them as the result of a series of historical choices made by men and women, as facts of society made by human beings, and not as natural or god-given, therefore unchangeable, permanent, irreversible.

  Edward Said

  Men, Choices Made, Historical

  Edward W. Said (2007). “The Edward Said Reader”, p.378, Vintage

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• The definition of terrorism has to be more precise, so that we are able to discriminate between, for example, what it is that the Palestinians are doing to fight the Israeli military occupation and terrorism of the sort that resulted in the World Trade Center bombing.

  Edward Said

  Military, Fighting, Example

  Source: www.progressive.org

  6 Copy quote

• There isn't a clear goal in sight. Osama bin Laden's organization has spun out from him and is now probably independent of him. There will be others who will appear and reappear. This is why we need a much more precise, a much more defined, a much more patiently constructed campaign, as well as one that surveys not just the terrorists' presence but the root causes of terrorism, which are ascertainable.

  Edward Said

  Independent, Clear Goals, Sight

  Source: www.progressive.org

  39 Copy quote

• The central fact for me is, I think, that the [role of the] intellectual... cannot be played without a sense of being someone whose place it is publicly to raise embarrassing questions, to confront orthodoxy and dogma (rather than to produce them), to be someone who cannot easily be co-opted by governments or corporations, and whose raison d'etre is to represent all those people and issues that are routinely forgotten or swept under the rug.

  Edward Said

  Thinking, Issues, Embarrassing Questions

  "Representation of the Intellectual". Book by Edward Said, 1994.

  10 Copy quote

• There's been essentially the same analysis over and over again and very little allowance made for different views and interpretations and reflections.

  Edward Said

  Reflection, Views, Different

  Source: www.progressive.org

  8 Copy quote

• The United States that has been involved first in the Gulf War and then in the tremendously damaging sanctions against Iraqi civilians. The United States that is the supporter of Israel against the Palestinians.

  Edward Said

  War, Israel, United States

  Source: www.progressive.org

  14 Copy quote

• The Orient and Islam have a kind of extrareal, phenomenologically reduced status that puts them out of reach of everyone except the Western expert. From the beginning of Western speculation about the Orient, the one thing th orient could not do was to represent itself. Evidence of the Orient was credible only after it had passed through and been made firm by the refining fire of the Orientalist’s work.

  Edward Said

  Fire, Islam, Experts

  Edward W. Said (2014). “Orientalism”, p.283, Vintage

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• It [9/11 event] was aimed at symbols: the World Trade Center, the heart of American capitalism, and the Pentagon, the headquarters of the American military establishment. But it was not meant to be argued with. It wasn't part of any negotiation. No message was intended with it. It spoke for itself, which is unusual.

  Edward Said

  Military, Heart, World

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• I emphasize in it [my Orientalism] accortdingly that neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation, partly identification of the Other.

  Edward Said

  Effort, Orientalism, West

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• In the Islamic world, the U.S. is seen in two quite different ways. One view recognizes what an extraordinary country the U.S. is.

  Edward Said

  Country, Islamic, Views

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• It is very easy to make wild generalizations about Islam. All you have to do is read almost any issue of The New Republic and you'll see there the radical evil that's associated with Islam, the Arabs as having a depraved culture, and so forth. These are impossible generalizations to make in the United States about any other religious or ethnic group.

  Edward Said

  Religious, Issues, Evil

  Source: progressive.org

  10 Copy quote

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