top of page
.png){kind=small}
"There is only one sin, only one, and that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft. When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right of a husband, you rob his children of a father. When you lie you steal someone's right to truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness. There is no more wretched act than stealing. A man who takes what is not his to take, be it life or a loaf of naan, I spit on such a man. And if I ever cross paths with him, God help him."
Standard
Customized
Exlpore more Ethics quotes
"But you can't just leave it at that!" said Anathema, pushing forward. "Think of all things you could do! Good things."Like what?" said Adam suspiciously."Well... you could bring all the whales back, to start with."He put his head on one side. "An' that'd stop people killing them?"She hesitated. It would have been nice to say yes."An' if people do start killing 'em, what would you ask me to do about 'em?" said Adam. "No. I reckon I'm getting the hang of this now. Once I start messing around like that, there'd be no stoppin' it. Seems to me, the only sensible thing is for people to know if they kill a whale, they've got a dead whale."
"Religion [dharma] is that where there is no irreligion (adharma, immorality). Religion cannot exist where there is irreligion. There can be only one or the other. Behind every intention, there is either [the force of] religion or [the force of] irreligion."
"We are all flawed and creatures of our times. Is it fair to judge us by the unknown standards of the future?"
"Of course, in the process, you must never do harm to others in any serious way, or you'll cease to amuse Him. Then payment comes due for promises you didn't keep."
"It is better to be slave to righteousness than slave to sin."
"Happiness at any price is no happiness at all."
"Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right."
"We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and the other which we practice but seldom preach."
Explore more quotes by Khaled Hosseini
"And that, ...is the story of our country, one invasion after another...Macedonians. Saddanians. Arabs. Mongols. Now the Soviets. But we're like those walls up there. Battered, and nothing pretty to look at, but still standing."
"I thought about you all the time. I used to pray that you'd live to be a hundred years old. I didn't know. I didn't know that you were ashamed of me."
"In the coming days and weeks, Laila would scramble frantically to commit it all to memory, what happened next. Like an art lover running out of a burning museum, she would grab whatever she could--a look, a whisper, a moan--to salvage from perishing to preserve. But time is the most unforgiving of fires, and she couldn't, in the end, save it all."
"There is a God, there always has been. I see him here, in the eyes of the people in this [hospital] corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him... there is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He will forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need. I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is."
"They rarely look at Baba -- the teenagers -- and then only with cold indifference, or even subtle disdain, as if my father should have known better than to allow old age and decay to happen to him."
"Exploitation to finance a beach house in Hawaii was one thing. Doing it to feed your kids was another."
"Public justice is the greatest kind of show, my brother. Drama. Suspense. And best of all education en masse."
"And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion."
"I learned that the world didn't see the inside of you, that it did not care a whit about the hopes and reams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that."
"Hassan couldn't read a first-grade textbook but he'd read me plenty. That was a little unsettling but also sort of comfortable to have someone who always knew what you needed."
bottom of page