Oriana Fallaci (June 29, 1929 - September 15, 2006) was an Italian journalist, author, and political interviewer. A former partisan during World War II, she had a long and successful journalistic career. Fallaci became famous worldwide for her coverage of war and revolution, and her interviews with many world leaders during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
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Alas, nothing reveals man the way war does. Nothing so accentuates in him the beauty and ugliness, the intelligence and foolishness, the brutishness and humanity, the courage and cowardice, the enigma.
America's vulnerability comes precisely from its strength, its wealth, its power and its modernity. It's the usual story of the dog chasing its own tail.
Glory is a heavy burden, a murdering poison, and to bear it is an art. And to have that art is rare.
Heroes can be sweet.
I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.
I have reached the conclusion that those who have physical courage also have moral courage. Physical courage is a great test.
I know ours is a world made by men for men, their dictatorship is so ancient it even extends to language.
It must be terribly lonely to be a king instead of a man.
My soldier weapon is the weapon of truth.
No matter what system you live under, there is no escaping the law that it's always the strongest, the cruellest, the least generous who win.
Objectivity does not exist. The word is a hypocrisy which is sustained by the lie that the truth stays in the middle. No, sir: Sometimes truth stays on one side only.
The larger truth, the universal truth that you can give in a novel, is far greater than what you can give through journalism.
The moment you give up your principles, and your values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period.
There are moments in Life when keeping silent becomes a fault, and speaking an obligation. A civic duty, a moral challenge, a categorical imperative from which we cannot escape.
To be good or bad doesn't count: life out in this world doesn't depend on that. It depends on a relation of forces based on violence. And survival is violence. You'll wear leather shoes because someone has killed a cow and skinned it to make leather.
We are an age without leaders. We stopped having leaders at the end of the 20th century.
What's the point anyway- of suffering, dying? It teaches us to live, boy. A man who does not struggle does not live, he survives.
Whether it comes from a despotic sovereign or an elected president, from a murderous general or a beloved leader, I see power as an inhuman and hateful phenomenon.
Why do the people humiliate themselves by voting? I didn't vote because I have dignity. If I had closed my nose and voted for one of them, I would spit on my own face.
You cannot govern, you cannot administrate, with an ignoramus.
You cannot survive if you do not know the past.
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(Today is also the birthday of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.)
Categories: Oriana Fallaci, Quotes on a topic
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