Turks Quotes

“...But the Mahommedan religion increases, instead of lessening, the fury of intolerance. It was originally propagated by the sword, and ever since, its votaries have been subject, above the people of all other creeds, to this form of madness. In a moment the fruits of patient toil, the prospects of material prosperity, the fear of death itself, are flung aside. The more emotional Pathans are powerless to resist. All rational considerations are forgotten. Seizing their weapons, they become Ghazis—as dangerous and as sensible as mad dogs: fit only to be treated as such. While the more generous spirits among the tribesmen become convulsed in an ecstasy of religious bloodthirstiness, poorer and more material souls derive additional impulses from the influence of others, the hopes of plunder and the joy of fighting. Thus whole nations are roused to arms. Thus the Turks repel their enemies, the Arabs of the Soudan break the British squares, and the rising on the Indian frontier spreads far and wide. In each case civilisation is confronted with militant Mahommedanism. The forces of progress clash with those of reaction. The religion of blood and war is face to face with that of peace.”
― Winston Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force

“Each of those churches shows certain books, which they call revelation, or the Word of God. The Jews say that their Word of God was given by God to Moses face to face; the Christians say, that their Word of God came by divine inspiration; and the Turks say, that their Word of God (the Koran) was brought by an angel from heaven. Each of those churches accuses the other of unbelief; and, for my own part, I disbelieve them all.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“Let’s stand against the killing of innocent civilians. It is time to make the future better than today. Together we can bring peace and unity to our communities.”
― Widad Akreyi

“It is time to recognize the past and ongoing genocides to prevent new ones. Together we can build a better world!”
― Widad Akreyi

“Because the Turkish nation has been successful in overcoming hardships through national unity and togetherness. And because the torch the Turkish nation holds in her hand and in her mind, while marching on the road of progress and civilization, is positive science.”
― Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

“If we hadn't had Atatürk, we would have been an Afghanistan, an Iraq!”
― Özden Toker

“Önündekinin gölgesini takip edersen bir gölge olarak kalırsın.”
― Deniz Canan, Larende’nin Varisleri Larende’nin Aynası Kısım -2

“We resemble ourselves.”
― Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

“The Turkish nation's character is noble
The Turkish nation is industrious
The Turkish nation is intelligent.”
― Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

“It did not please me, either, that the Christians and the princes were driven, urged, and irritated into attacking the Turk and making war on him, before they amended their own ways and lived like true Christians.”
― Martin Luther, On War Against the Turk

“Tanrı misafiri sözcüğü sadece Türklere aitti.”
― Ayşe Kulin, Kanadı Kırık Kuşlar

“The Turks have an army that goes back to the Ottoman Empire. Our army is very new.
But there's a world of difference already between the early 1990's and now (early 2000). The food and pay, it's all better.”
― An Azerbaijani colonel

“We are all Turks.”
― Nursultan Nazarbayev

“So don’t misunderstand me, it isn’t that I think the Old Greeks are worse than the Turks, what irritates me is that they think they’re so much better when really they’re exactly the same. God made them Cain and Abel, and whichever one happens to have the upper hand takes his turn as Cain. Whoever is unfortunate enough to be playing the role of Abel seizes the opportunity to bemoan the barbarism of the other. If I ever get to meet God In Person I shall suggest quite forcefully that He impartially abolish their religions, and then they will be friends for ever.”
― Louis de Bernières, Birds Without Wings

“Hemen dile getirilmemesi gereken şeyleri övünerek anlatıyorsun.”
― Deniz Canan, Larende'nin Düşüşü

“Throughout history; the Turks' political organization has developed in step with their military organization. Their hearts dedicated to soldiering, the Turks have proved to the world that their nation is an army.”
― Turkish General Staff

“As far as concerns the army, I don't know which people among us can claim to be more disciplined and closer to the order of the Romans than the Turks.”
― Francesco Sansovino

“If we have an administration in this country [Turkey], it's the army. But a big percentage of so-called public 'confidence' in the army is just fear. Civilians are not yet conscious of their power.”
― Mehmet Dülger

“The military consider themselves the real owners of this country [Turkey] because they are ready to give their lives to save us. But I would like to be governed, not saved. I want to be saved from the people who want to save me.”
― Mehmet Dülger

“I once tried to take the army unit here [Kurdish village] back to the barracks, but the village chief came and said he would resign if I did.
Soldiers [Turks] here help with irrigation, painting walls, building carpet workshops, and so on. When there's an army unit here, the villagers even have a doctor and free medicine.”
― General Ergin Saygun

“Organize competitions to let the local people see that your sharpshooters shoot well. But don't allow the bodies of dead terrorists to be robbed. Don't show damaged bodies of terrorists in the village square to try to show 'this is what we can do'. This behavior may frighten the people but damages the image of a caring state.”
― Colonel Dağ

“I like Western values. Since the time we were in Central Asia, the momentum of Turks has been towards the West. But this shouldn't be interpreted as worship of, or dependence on the West.”
― Hilmi Özkök

“We (Turkish soldiers) were met by just a few men on horseback in Caucasian dress, like fairy-tale soldiers with silver-plated sabres in their belts. Our small procession seemed to me to be the harbinger of a great liberation, the awakening of the vast land of Turan. It was a new Ergenekon.”
― Şevket Süreyya Aydemir

“Rarely has the West in its quasi-totality taken up such a persistent and negative image of a people (the Turks).”
― Stéphane Yerasimos

“Reform isn't easy, and for me dress is the most important symbol of it, all revolutions must be takes as a whole, we've got to complete the mission.”
― Özden Toker

“The Turks, themselves defeated in the Great War, treated the Russians surprisingly well and smiled acceptingly when their uninvited guests would rest on the stairs of mosques. They would even allow the Russians to enter the Hagia Sophia, which before the Ottoman conquest of 1453 had been the major cathedral of Eastern Christianity. Greeks and Armenians, old foes of the Turks, were still banned from this enormous mosque.”
― John Curtis Perry, The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga

“Deprived of their direct ties with Central Asia -- and with it their access to Turkish slaves, mercenaries and war horses -- the later Ghaznavids lost their wider, imperial vision an acquired the character of a regional, North Indian state. They were certainly not seen as menacing aliens who might have posed a civilzational threat to Indian culture. Contemporary Sanskrit inscriptions refer to the Ghaznavids not as Muslims but as 'turushkas' (Turks), an ethnic term, or as 'hammiras', a Sanskritized rendering of 'amir' (Arabic for commander), an official title. For their part, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries Ghaznavid rulers in India issued coins from Lahore bearing the same legends that had appeared on those of their Indian predecessors, the Hindu Shahi dynasty (c.850-1002). These included Śiva's bull Nandi and the Sanskrit phrase 'śri samanta deva' (Honourable Chief Commander) inscribed in Devanagari script. Such measures point to the later Ghaznavids' investment in establishing cultural and monetary continuity with North Indian kingsdoms. Moreover, despite the dynasty's rhetoric about defending Sunni Islam, religion posed no bar to military recruitment, as Indians had always been prominent in Ghaznavid armies. In 1033 Mahmud of Ghazni gave the command of his army stationed in Lahore to a Hindu general, and in Ghazni itself Indian military contingents had their own commanders, inhabited their own quarter of the city, and were generally considered more reliable soldiers than the Turks.
Crucially, the Ghaznavids brought to the Punjab the entire gamut of Persianate institutions and practices that would define the political economy of much of India for centuries to come. Inherited from the creative ferment of tenth-century Khurasan and Central Asia under the Samanid rulers of Bukhara, these included: the elaboration of a ranked and salaried bureaucracy tied to the state's land revenue and military systems; the institution of elite, or military, slavery; an elaboration of the office of 'sultan'; the courtly patronage of Persian arts, crafts and literature; and a tradition of spiritually powerful holy men, or Sufis, whose relations with royal power were ambivalent, to say the least.”
― Richard M. Eaton, India in the Persianate Age, 1000–1765

“Als je zo dichtbevolkt woont, komen de muren op je af en wil je niet thuiskomen, daar weet ik alles van. Maar als u dacht dat het niet erger kon, hebt u het mis; onze Marokkaanse buren leven met zes kinderen in een even klein huis. In een van de twee slaapkamers hebben ze twee stapelbedden en de twee kleinste kinderen slapen op de bank, die ze omtoveren tot een bed als Allah Zijn deken over de hemels spreidt. Dat is overigens geen uitzondering, de meeste gezinnen van Noord-Afrikaanse variëteit in onze wijk hebben minimaal vier kinderen en wonen op dezelfde manier. De Turken hebben meestal twee of drie kinderen, maar die hebben het desalniettemin ook krap, aangezien de Marokkaanse manier van wonen niet als referentiekader dient. Alles is natuurlijk relatief, maar dat zij kiezen voor gezinsomvangen uit de tafel van zes en ademruimte genoeg vinden om te leven, wil niet zeggen dat wij minder recht van klagen hebben.”
― Lale Gül, Ik ga leven

“Wegens de krapte zijn de meeste kinderen en jongeren geneigd om veel, talrijk en langdurig op straat te hangen, anders kibbelen ze met de divisie thuis, ledigheid is immers des duivels oorkussen, of ondervinden ze hinder van de ouders die ongevraagd je kamer binnenstormen (kloppen doen we niet aan bij ons, privacy evenmin) en vervolgens jou voor klaagmuur aanzien en beginnen te raaskallen over alles waar ze hun ei of zaad over kwijt moeten, meestal familiaire aangelegenheden, financieel noodweer, huwelijks gesodemieter, en anders over eventuele rommel in je kamer. Ze komen je vragen om de post voor ze te vertalen en allerlei formulieren in te vullen en worden ook nog boos en verwijtend als je dat niet kunt, zelfs al ben je nog kind. Ze eisen dat je naar de moskee gaat op vrijdag, vragen waarom je niet bidt, vragen wat je kijkt op de telefoon, vragen waarom je lacht als je op je beeldscherm kijkt, vragen met wie je belt en waarom dat klinkt als de stem van iemand van het andere geslacht of ze produceren gewoon heel veel geluid terwijl ze videobellen met familieleden, zowel uit het buiten- als binnenland, terwijl jij je moet concentreren op je huiswerk of gewoon niet blootgesteld wilt worden aan dat oeverloze gezwatel. Het ergste van alles is als er mensen onthaald worden en de visite zo lang blijft zetelen dat je je afvraagt of ze van plan zijn te blijven tukken. En dat gebeurt nogal frequent; op elk moment van de week kunnen ze ongegeneerd komen aankloppen en blijven tot je ze afwimpelt door opzichtig te gapen. Men zegt dat bezoek en vis drie dagen fris blijven, daar hadden ze bij de Turken nog geen notie van genomen. Of ze namen die drie dagen letterlijk.”
― Lale Gül, Ik ga leven

“In onze cultuur moet je immers spreken met lichaamstaal, niet louter met woorden, dat is nooit overtuigend genoeg, daarom moest ik wel bijtend reageren — en daar vooral vurig bij kijken — op dit om de zoveel tijd terugkerende dictaat.”
― Lale Gül, Ik ga leven