A Quote by Salman Rushdie

History could claw upward as well as down. The powerful could be deafened by the cries of the poor. — © Salman Rushdie
History could claw upward as well as down. The powerful could be deafened by the cries of the poor.
Slogans which deafened us so that we could not hear the truth.
I wish I could have 25,000 years of my personal family history documented in a very powerful computer or a CD-ROM that I could just pop in and my computer would never crash
I wish I could have 25,000 years of my personal family history documented in a very powerful computer or a CD-ROM that I could just pop in and my computer would never crash.
Years and years ago, I was obsessed with these Pamela Love necklaces, and they had a claw, like an eagle claw, which was silver. Then I found one on this random website. I thought it was a fake claw, and when it arrived, it was a real one, cut off from the animal! It came to my house, and it was disgusting; it was a chicken claw or something.
Formula One does very well. It is a very interesting asset. Could it be run in a different way? Sure it could be. Could it be improved? I'm sure it could. But all I can say is, it seems to do pretty well.
As a young man, I was very interested in how people lived in earlier times; how they got from place to place, lighted their homes, cooked their meals and so on. So I went to the history books. Well, I could find out all about kings and presidents; but I could learn nothing of their everyday lives. So I decided that history is bunk.
We could not wipe ourselves out with a nuclear war. I do not want so sound too positive. It would be a catastrophe, but it would not be a final one. We are not powerful enough for that. An asteroid could be that powerful. That is why we need to do our homework.
The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker's body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers' intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.
One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.
While I knew that individuals had in history - and still could - make a difference, it seemed presumptuous - even pompous - to imagine that I could be part of it, that I could be one of them.
Jesus said when the woman poured the alabaster bottle of perfume on him that was worth almost a year's wages, and Judas, who was very money-minded, said you shouldn't have done that, because you're wasting that, we could have sold that and given it to the poor. And Jesus himself said, you will always have the poor with you, but she has done this as an honor to me, and she will be honored for it all of her days. And so you never run out of poor people. You could give everything you had, I could give everything I had, and the world would still be full of poor people.
We do not put enough emphasis on early childhood years. We neglect children in this society; as a society we're guilty of child neglect. If we could eliminate the vestiges of racism, if we could develop a more powerful agenda for child care, child development, and a more powerful education system, we could prevent a lot of the incapacities which in turn tend to generate structural unemployment.
If you've ever really been poor you remain poor at heart all your life. I've often walked when I could very well afford to take a taxi because I simply couldn't bring myself to waste the shilling it would cost.
I remember watching that scene in 'My Girl' where Anna Chlumsky cries at a funeral. I would cry with her and be like, 'Yeah, I think I could do that. I could do a funeral scene.'
Every phenomenon, however trifling it be, has a cause, and a mind infinitely powerful, and infinitely well-informed concerning the laws of nature could have foreseen it from the beginning of the ages. If a being with such a mind existed, we could play no game of chance with him; we should always lose.
History will judge societies and governments - and their institutions - not by how big they are or how well they serve the rich and the powerful, but by how effectively they respond to the needs of the poor and the helpless.
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