Shirin Ebadi Quotes

On one occasion in 1987 the security police came looking for me because of a drawing that I'd published.

I never complain. I chose the road of fighting with the Ukrainian oligarchy in 1996, and have paid for this with my freedom and that of my husband, my father and my close friends.

For more than 30 years the Islamic regime and its apologists have tried to dismiss women's struggle in Iran as part of a western ploy.

Either you were opposed to the growth of Fascism and went out to fight against it, or you acquiesced in its crimes and permitted its growth.

The Shah is a nut!

In the years before its victory in 1949, the [Communist] Party newspapers were constantly criticizing the Chiang Kai-shek regime for repression of free speech, and often issued loud appeals on behalf of persecuted voices of conscience.

It's true that my father was imprisoned for three and a half years, and it was because he stood up for what he believed in. It's not a taboo subject in our household. We talk about it. After all, I want to know what happened.

In the same way that Egypt and Libya conspired to 'disappear' my father and silence writers such as Idris Ali, they made me, too, to a far lesser extent, feel punished for speaking out.

I call on the Iranian people: it is not too late to replace the corrupt regime and return to your glorious Persian heritage, a heritage of culture and values and not of bombs and missiles... How can a nation allow a regime to instill fear, take away the people's freedom and shock the young generation that seeks its way out of the dictatorial Iran.

If you live in a society where those who govern society and determine its path do not respect freedom of speech and freedom of religion, freedom of choice, freedom of assembly, and if there is no democratic process and no way to change the order of things by reason and peace and love and so on, and if, as a result of that, certain ideas in which you believe are being crushed, then I think the only way you can defend yourself against this violence is in using violence of your own.

In countries where democracy is either non-existent or in development, on the other hand, citizens crave those freedoms. Maybe that is one lesson Western citizens can learn from those countries: treasure what you have. Use your rights and freedoms to effect the change you want.

The ayatollah in Iran says he believes that he got the letter, but he thinks he accidentally threw it out with his Crate & Barrel catalog.

I am persecuted because of my writings, I think, therefore, that I should write some more.

What I'm really trying to say is that I believed an armed insurrection could work. After I was shot and went to prison, that ended that illusion. I had time to think.

Fascism itself can only be turned away if all those who are outraged by it show a commitment to social justice that equals the intensity of their indignation.

Newspapers are closed if they print the wrong things in Iran. Iranian journalists or Iranian-American journalists, for that matter, I think are pressured in a lot of different ways, expected to give information to intelligence services. Americans can be thrown out of the country.

I certainly think it's important to speak up and say how unacceptable Donald Trump is. I'm always more than willing to do that.

You really hope that people who want to be politically active aren't so disillusioned at this point. I do feel positive about what's happening. I think that with all of these movements, and this growing collective voice that's emerging, people are starting to come out of the kind of dazed state that they were in for so many years. But it's tough to know the best way to effect change now. Campaigning alone no longer seems to be the answer.

Most of intellectuals are false prophets, flatterers of the court. The real prophets are the exception and treated badly. How badly they're treated depends on the society. Like in Eastern Europe, they were treated very badly. In Latin America, they were slaughtered.

We live in a world where it's so accessible to date now, which is great. I don't judge that. We have so many ways of meeting people. I like to meet someone and have that chivalry, to take them out on a date and actually be a gentleman. I think that's becoming rarer and rarer.

In the basement of 33 Himmel Street, Max Vandenburg could feel the fists of an entire nation. One by one they climbed into the ring to beat him down. They made him bleed. They let him suffer. Millions of them - until one last time, when he gathered himself to his feet.

My father never ran for office or supported anybody for office, and was not engaged in that at all. But I think people throughout the area were just in a constant state of tension - I mean, adults.

Johnny's in the basement Mixing up the medicine I'm on the pavement Thinking 'bout the government.

If George Bush [Jr.] decided he was going to turn the troops loose on Syria and Iran after that he would last in office for about 15 minutes. In fact if President Bush were to try that now even I would think that he ought to be impeached. You can't get away with that sort of thing in this democracy.

God will judge us, Mr. Harris, by--by what we did to relieve the suffering of our fellow human beings. I don't think God cares what doctrine we embrace.