Tariq Ramadan Quotes

If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.

I try to take interest in whatever comes my way. Another aspect of this is [that] if at the beginning it seems like something I don't want to do, I ask myself why I don't want to do this and why I feel this way. It's perhaps rooted in the fact that I'm trying to avoid something.

I always want to try and see what the appeal is in anything. It's the healthiest and most honest approach.

I want to avoid sounding like I'm criticizing because I don't have all the facts in front of me yet. And I am trying to be a unifier.

You just want to try a bunch of stuff, because you don't know what's going to be great.

Try it. You don't have to do it ever again if you don't want to. But try it once. Try everything once.

If you’re the type of person who wants to associate exclusively with those who perfectly mirror your own ethical worldview, you’re reducing significantly the scope of your potential life experience.

He turns toward me. I want to touch him, but I’m afraid of his bareness; afraid that he will make me bare too. ‘Is this scaring you, Tris?’ ‘No,’ I croak. I clear my throat. ‘Not really. I’m only…afraid of what I want.’ ‘What do you want?’ Then his face tightens. ‘Me?’ Slowly I nod.

This was an unpleasant trend. I didn’t want a lot of guys popping in and out of my bedroom. I wanted one who would stay.

I always try to be open to whatever the universe wants from me.

Rich people live in places so removed from everybody else, they operate in circles so incestuous and so closed, they're off on islands. To try to understand their indifference is to understand also their separation from the rest of society.

Skepticism is my only gospel, but I don't want to make a dogma out of it.

I'm just trying to illustrate that it's okay to be different - not that it's good, not that it's bad, but that it's all right. I'm trying to tell kids to have a good time and to encourage them to be creative and to question things.

I do want to direct, eventually. I don't know if it will be a short film or a music video or a feature, but I know that I want to at least try it and see.

I've always believed that if you want to really try and make a great film, not a good film, but a great film, you have to take a lot of risks.

There's nothing like having a sympathetic reader who asks the right questions, who understands what you're trying to achieve and only wants to make it better.

I think also, obviously, having someone like Lucas [Goodman], and the people around me are very, not gender-driven or any of that, so when we come in as thing, that's what it is. You can work with us or not work with us and I think that has been helpful. I don't try to put myself in a vulnerable position in that way. I won't just sit quietly.

Toleration is not the opposite of intolerance, but is the counterfeit of it. Both are despotisms. The one assumes to itself the right of withholding liberty of conscience, the other of granting it.

Americans need to see people who are honestly trying to learn from each other, even as we make our own points powerfully and fight for our own values and policies.

To judge someone before understanding that person is a form of human rejection and feeds upon itself. It intensifies personal insecurities, necessitating more judgment (prejudice) and less understanding. The processes continue in this vicious cycle.

I'm more concerned with the work people do than their gender. When I was younger, I was pretty judgmental. Things had to be a certain way. Now I just want to see the work. It doesn't matter who does it.

When you travel as secretary, one problem you have is that the press comes with you and wants an immediate result because it justifies their trip. And sometimes the best result is that you don't try to get a result but try to get an understanding for the next time you go to them.

When you're a writer, you want to try to avoid cliches. Unfortunately, when you're writing about marriage or family, all cliches seem to apply.

The offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can’t give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet; that I haven’t understood enough; that I can’t know enough; that I’m always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I try to be good but sometimes a person just has to break out and act like the wild and springy thing one used to be. It's impossible not to remember wild an want it back.