MMI QUOTATIONS
MEHMET MURAT ILDAN QUOTES
Contemporary Turkish Novelist & Playwright, Thinker Mehmet Murat ildan (MMI), Member of the International PEN Writers.
This account has the Collection of His Quotes, Quotations, Aphorisms, Apothegms, Words of Wisdom, Maxims, Wise Words and Sagacious Sayings.
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Mehmet’s quotes
“We are living in the World of Snails! Man is extremely slow! Whoever has a limited life, he has no right to be slow! Things must be done quickly! Slowness belongs to the immortals!”— Mehmet Murat ildan
* Fire is only your friend as long as you can control it! Without control, you have a powerful enemy! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Sometimes you pave a wonderful path all alone, and then you disappear, but then that path becomes crowded, with millions walking in your footsteps. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* A stove alone is useless; it’s just a piece of metal. It only becomes useful when you throw something into it to burn! The human mind is like a stove; unless ideas are poured into it and it radiates useful heat, it becomes nothing more than a decorative empty stove in the room! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You threw a stone into the water, and the waves scattered in all directions; you created an idea in the universe, and that idea spread in all directions! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You face a chaotic universe that could crush you like an ant, yet you waste your energy fighting your fellow creatures, and worse, you think you’ll die and be resurrected! Look, my friend, the universe is your home; find a way to stay here permanently, develop your mind, and use that developed mind to save yourself, because you are the saviour! You can consider the universe a god, but the universe can only save you by offering you the means to save yourself through you! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* A bridge gains more value if the other side is more attractive! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Student: Master, to whom does nature belong? Master: Nature belongs to everything and everyone who does not harm it! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You can drink your soup ice-cold, but it’s no longer soup; you can do eccentric things in life, but if you haven’t been able to give meaning to those eccentric things, it’s like drinking cold soup! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Student: Master, they say there’s nothing left unsaid in this world, is that true? Master: There’s a goat hair on your head! Look, that’s the word that’s never been spoken before! In the infinite universe, there are infinite words, infinite possibilities! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Humans have committed many crimes against nature, but one of the greatest is disrupting the general silence and tranquillity of the natural world! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The negative view of artificial intelligence stems from human ego! It’s incredibly difficult for humans to accept the potential for AI to rapidly become more human-like, even surpassing humans in every aspect, and eventually becoming a superhuman. Human ego exhibits a serious intellectual resistance to the potential for an apprentice to surpass his master! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You can’t teach a flower to be polite, because it’s already polite; you need to teach politeness to a rude cactus! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You set out to get lost, but you just can’t seem to get lost! It’s like being trapped in a room full of light when you just want some darkness! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The curtain has to wait for the window to open when it wants to dance! You are truly free if your ability to do the things that make you happy depends entirely on you; but if it depends on other things, then you are truly a slave. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* We are in the 21st century; people are no longer afraid of ghosts, ghouls, vampires, or zombies because they were imaginary, but they are afraid of idiotic politicians because they are real, and their effects are extraordinarily stupid and terrifying! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you throw away your religion, your humanity won’t perish, because your humanity isn’t dependent on religion. But if you throw away your morality and conscience, then your humanity will perish! If you say that religion is the source of morality and conscience, then you can’t explain the millions of irreligious people who possess wonderful morals and consciences! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Sometimes a street is so silent, so dead, and so empty that one wonders if one is still alive, and it is such a street that invites you to confront the realities of the universe – that is, the absence of meaning in the universe! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* When you embark on a meaningful journey with good books, and you don’t keep that journey to yourself but share it with others, you initiate new journeys for others, and only then does your own journey gain great meaning! Your purpose in life should always be universal, not local! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* A magician who pulls a rabbit out of his hat is applauded, but it hardly occurs to anyone to applaud the universe, which has pulled humans, rabbits, and every other living thing out of its hat, and even gifted humanity with the concept of God with its terrifying powers! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you’re going to hell, at least have the morals to leave no footprints behind! If you want to ruin yourself, don’t pave the way for others to follow suit and be ruined as well! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The most valuable energy is the energy you spend developing your own mind and morals, because the rewards for you and others are immense! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You cannot claim to be civilized and be governed by religious rules at the same time; if one exists, the other does not! Religious rules has no place in the definition of civilization, because a civilized country is one where people are free, able to speak freely, dress freely, and criticize freely. No country where religious rules prevail can speak of freedom or civilization! A country that does not prioritize human reason over so-called supernatural powers is a failed country that has not yet established a civilization and has not yet evolved! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* For those who think small, the world is big; for those who think big, the world is small! The vast sums of money and effort spent on space exploration are the product of big thinking! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* When you encounter people with small windows, you can do one of two things: Either enlarge their windows, or leave them alone with their small windows and save your own time! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Does light fear another light? Have you ever thought about that? If a brighter light came to it, would it be jealous? If it saw a dimmer light, would it despise it? No, light does none of these things; it adds something of itself to both the brighter and the dimmer light, contributing to both! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You might get caught in the rain with an umbrella or without! Both situations have their own unique beauty, and if you understand this, the negative aspects of the rain disappear in both cases, leaving only the beauty it brings! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you spend too much time on small and insignificant tasks, you won’t have time for big and important ones! Choose to focus on the big and important tasks! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If there’s something you can do besides waiting, don’t wait! And believe me, my friend, there’s almost always something you can do besides waiting! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Do you live in a society where shadows are more interesting than people? Ah, then you live in a very boring society! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* From time to time, the tram of the past passes in front of you, sometimes it stops, beckoning you to board, but you think, ‘Why does it keep appearing before me?’ and you continue on your way without ever getting on! Perhaps it’s coming back to take you back to the past, to teach you a lesson you should have learned but didn’t! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If we were to talk about a list of betrayals of humanity, reactionary counter-revolutions against progressive-revolutions would be quite high on the list! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Leading others astray is a more unforgivable evil than leading yourself astray. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* There is always a crucial difference between rising in a society through rotten immorality and rising through high morality: With the former, you will always fall, and with the latter, you will always remain at the top! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* When you allow the universe to flow through you while you think and write, neither night nor day suffices; you always write, always flow! How can you best drive a car? You drive well when you don’t see the car as something separate from yourself, but act as if you were the car itself! If you want the universe to flow through you, you must do the same, you must see yourself as the universe itself! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Both crowds and solitude have their rewards; but if you ask me, my friend, which has a greater reward, I would say solitude! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you say, “I live peacefully in my own world without harming the world,” that’s not the right thing to do because there are many problems in the world, and by isolating yourself, you also isolate yourself from contributing to the solution of these problems, which is escaping responsibility and harming the world! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Since the beginning of time, the universe has created works of art of extraordinary beauty, and with the existence of humankind, it has taken this artistic ability to an even more advanced stage through humankind! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* In this infinite universe, for humankind, which is still a very fragile being, a belief in a “god without a book” would be more suitable to its current level of development than a “godless universe” in order to satisfy its spiritual needs! If humankind manages to survive in this universe and attains powers that can even control the universe and eliminate death, then it will no longer need a god without a book! However, in either case, it can always logically view the universe, to which it owes its existence, as a kind of god. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* While the idea of ”be silent, let them fight and destroy each other” when evil forces are locked in a deadly battle is quite logical, it is not a moral statement! Because morality includes saving even the wicked! But the whole issue is how to transform them into good after saving them! Is it possible to turn the devil into an angel? Here again, morality intervenes and tells us: Try! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you’re working in a perfect room with a perfect atmosphere and you can’t produce beautiful work, don’t blame yourself, the room, or your muses! Sometimes, if you don’t look for reasons, everything quickly falls into place! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Time is like the wind; it both takes things away from you and brings things to you! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* I have known ravens, the most intelligent of birds, who were completely devoid of arrogance; I have known the most foolish of men, who were filled with arrogance! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Neither the sea nor the harbour is meant for staying there forever! Life doesn’t approve of constant action or constant rest; the former wears you down, and the latter begins to rot you away! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Yes, it’s true, there are many reasons to be afraid in this universe, and you should be! But remember, fear fuels courage! The more you fear, the more a rebellion against that fear begins within you; courage, the child of fear, is born and destroys fear! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you were to ask who in this world you should never withhold your greeting from, I would say it’s those who struggle through life without harming anyone! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Never let fools make history, because throughout history they have never been seen to make history other than stupidity! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* What does the sunlight streaming into your room tell you? Some good things will surely reach you, as long as you don’t put obstacles in their way! The occurrence of good things in your life depends more on you than on anything else! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you can see, hear, and feel the details of life even while doing simple things – like the steam rising as you pour tea into your cup, the peaceful sounds reminiscent of a tiny waterfall, the colourful shadow of the teacup, the tea leaves floating inside, the feeling of the cup slowly warming its handle – then you are living life to the fullest. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* There’s one important question humanity has asked throughout history that no longer needs to be asked! Are there other intelligent beings out there somewhere in space? Yes, there are, and this question is now irrelevant! The question we should be asking is how we can reach them, or how they can reach us? ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Master: If we see a cockroach moving on the ground, we notice it immediately, but if we see a stone of the same size standing still, we pass by without noticing it! What do you learn from this? Student: We must move to attract attention! Master: No! If a cockroach is noticed, it can be stepped on and killed! If you are not strong enough, don’t attract attention until you become stronger! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* A candle burning during the day has little prestige! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Since there is no such thing as an impregnable fortress, why have people persistently built so-called impregnable castles? The answer is simple: Because everyone is blind and arrogant enough to believe their own castle is invincible! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You might think everyone is busy with different things, doing different jobs, but if you get to the bottom of it, everyone is actually doing one thing: Trying to hold on to this short life! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You cannot defeat something you accept as invincible, and the greatest reason why death remains a valid reality is this weak ‘psychology of acceptance’! The idea that anything is possible in the universe is a powerful and superior psychology, and that is what humanity needs! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The most important thing to know when anxiously or hopefully waiting for something to happen is this: There is an alternative to waiting, and life often prefers you to take action instead of waiting! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* When you, as an intelligent person, find yourself among fools, do the fools become more intelligent, or does your own foolishness increase? If the latter is true, then you weren’t very intelligent even before you found yourself among fools! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Imagine that, without any effort, the thing you’ve always dreamed of suddenly comes true! But don’t jump for joy, because well-deserved happiness always requires serious effort, and undeserved happiness is fake, not real. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Hostility towards others is a sign of low IQ; anyone who approaches others with friendship possesses a high enough intellect to understand that the future of humanity lies in friendship and peace. ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you’ve seen something very strange today, you’re very lucky because that strange thing will make you think, while you’ll pass by normal things without giving them a second thought! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You can’t read everything, you can’t think everything, you can’t set everything right, you can’t solve everything, you can’t walk every path, you can’t help everyone, you can’t win every battle! Know this, calm down, and relax! By limiting what you can do, you can use your power much more efficiently and achieve much greater things! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Someone who has experienced a disaster might think that it’s almost impossible for them to win the ‘disaster lottery’ a second time, just like in a regular lottery; however, in the workings of life, there’s no such thing as a ‘morality of not hitting someone who’s already fallen’! If you’re in a place where disaster is likely to happen and you have no protection, you’ll experience another disaster anyway! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* My friend, do you know what people do most in this world? Sleep? Walk? Run? Sit? Drink water? Eat? None of them! What people do most is talk nonsense, say meaningless and invalid things devoid of reason and logic! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The most terrifying risk of postponing life is that when you finally want to live that life you postponed, this time life itself might postpone it completely – as if taking revenge on you – ensuring you can never live it! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Whatever you hide will eventually surface, whether you like it or not! Even if you like to hide it, what’s hidden doesn’t like to be hidden! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you think the future will definitely come, you could be terribly mistaken! Therefore, you should think of the future only as a possibility, a world of ‘maybe’! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You’ve come to a dark place and you expect a single candle to illuminate everything? Don’t ask for more than what something or someone is capable of! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If a person cannot control her own shadow, it means she cannot control herself! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Even if your foolish politicians decide to go to war, you shouldn’t obey that decision, because foolish politicians make the decisions, but it’s the people who fight. Whoever made the decision, let them fight, not you! And this is said to the people of both the attacked and the attacking countries! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If one day someone asks you to show him a magical street, show him the street where you spent your childhood! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Did the light find you in the darkness, or did you find the light? In the first case, you can simply be happy by saying ‘I’m lucky,’ but in the second, you can be both happy and proud of yourself by saying ‘I’m talented!’ ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* In countries with obedient people, you cannot achieve success against fascist governments through civil disobedience! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Sometimes, when you’re focused on your goal, you pay no attention to the sounds around you! If you do, your pace slows down, your enthusiasm wanes! There’s a concept called the silence of the goal, and it means this: As you move towards your goal, you become mentally deaf; the goal is ahead, and there’s only a great silence, a profound deafness, as you go there! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you’re going out into a treacherous sea, you must be sure you can overcome even the most terrifying wave; otherwise, be wise and stay in your harbour, be honest and don’t give false hope to those who set out with you! Act the same way if you enter politics! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you don’t love the stormy sea, you don’t love one of its most important qualities! When you don’t love a character holistically, only an incomplete and insufficient love emerges! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If silence has come to find you, don’t make noise and get angry at it, because it is your friend, it has come to help you, to leave you alone with your mind and thoughts; if it leaves, thousands of things will take its place, distracting you and distancing you from yourself! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* When evil prevails politically in a country, or at least appears to do so, it will rapidly drag that country into a far worse situation, transforming it into something like a building completely destroyed by an earthquake. This will pave the way for the building to be rebuilt – rid of all its evil elements! Hope, which seems to possess an eternal life, proves this to us time and again through its constant resurrection; the door thought to be closed opens again! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If believing you saw a witch riding a broomstick is easier than believing the incompetent politicians running your country are doing the right thing, then it’s time you exercised your democratic rights peacefully by quietly withdrawing from the economic system! Remember, you don’t have to fund the devil; by not contributing to the economy of evil, you’re not adding fuel to the devil’s fire! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Will the destination at the end of the journey be worth the journey? It would be absurd to ask that question about life! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Can you be both a true ‘master of getting lost’ and a guide? Yes, you can, because there will be people who want to get lost, and they will come to you to get lost! No matter how strange or even absurd you are, there will always be those who are captivated by your strangeness and absurdity! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Surprise yourself, amaze yourself! Can you do it? Do you wake up at 9 am? Wake up at 3 am! Don’t like tomatoes? Eat some tomatoes! Do you shower with hot water? Take a cold shower! Push yourself, try new paths, use new methods! Let’s see what happens! Maybe you can add a new version of yourself, expand yourself; maybe these new things that scare you will enrich you! In short, my friend, give your new self a chance! If you don’t like it, you can go back to your old self; if you like it, welcome to your new world! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Even if you create the most perfect imitation of something, it will still remain an imitation! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Falling into a crowd is the same as falling into a river; you are no longer yourself, you are part of the river, and you will behave as the river behaves! Once you enter the crowd, you have no right to complain about the crowd, just as a leaf falling into a river has no right to complain! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* One of the most important achievements in life is being able to live according to your own time! Not waiting for others, not following their plans, implementing your own plan the moment you decide to, setting your own schedule – that’s a true blessing! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Where there is no sunrise, there is no sunset! If you are a person lacking ambition, you cannot impress people by appearing on stage like the sun, and therefore, when you leave the stage like the sun, you cannot create admiration and sorrow around you! First, you must rise like the sun so that you can be applauded like it when you set! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The faster a society can adopt forward-thinking ideas and innovations, the further ahead it will be of other societies! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The arrogant side of humankind doesn’t want to see UFOs because it wants to believe that it is the only privileged, intelligent being in the universe! The malevolent side of humankind doesn’t want to see UFOs because it believes that the evil and violent tendencies within itself are also present in those coming from the outside world! So which side of humankind wants to see UFOs? The scientific side and the adventurous side! The scientific side is the one that knows we cannot be alone in the universe and desires an external force that can support us in our struggle for existence against the universe; the adventurous side is the one that desires a new story, a new thrill! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The day is over, you may have had great successes or terrible failures. Now forget all that; can you breathe? Yes? That’s success, the rest is just talk! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You seek saints, you seek saintesses for your salvation! But don’t’ you know that you are the saint, you are the saintess! The help you’re looking for is yourself; you are the source of helping yourself! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* No matter how charismatic you are, how impressive your speech, how important and extraordinary your achievements, or how artistic and captivating your demeanor, if you’re dealing with a complete idiot, everything you do is ordinary and insignificant! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Not every writer is a wise person, and not every wise person is a writer, but if you are both a wise person and a writer, that’s the best! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Most people see those who help them as a bridge; they cross the bridge and move on, without even looking back! To sincerely stop on the bridge and express gratitude is the work of only beautiful and refined souls! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The only way for a fish to love its fisherman is for the fisherman to give up his rod, his net, in short, everything that makes him a fisherman! And the only way for people to love politicians is for the politicians to give up themselves and evolve into a new person by possessing what they lack: character, honour, honesty! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you worry about whether a tunnel with no entrance has an exit, you’re already trapped inside! The mind can make you a genius or a fool; a king or a jester! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Rain is an egotistical artist, a silencer! It silences the sounds of people and animals, and imposes its own melodic sound on the streets, rooftops, trees, and everywhere it falls, showcasing its own performance! It says, ‘Everyone look at me; everyone listen to me!’ It’s one of those children of nature who loves to put itself forward! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you make music to appeal to the souls of others, not your own, that’s called money! You should make music that resonates with your own soul, and those who find that music resonate with their own souls will listen to it, and that’s called art! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You’ve found a beautiful light; if you don’t internalize it, you’ll remain in darkness when you move away from it! If you can internalize every good thing you find or encounter, then when those good things are gone, you will become those good things you found or encountered! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* He who despises the candle does not deserve the sun! You should respect even the smallest thing that benefits you, so that you may deserve things that will greatly benefit you! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* No matter which country you are in, on one side there are beautiful people who dream beautiful dreams, and on the other side there are evil people who try to destroy those dreams! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* No matter how much criticism, booing, or hatred you receive, whether in clothing, ideas, or inventions, being ahead of your time means earning the honour of being a pioneer by bringing the distant future into the present! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* One of history’s most absurd misconceptions is that when a war is declared against a country that has committed diabolical atrocities, especially against its own people, that country is portrayed as a victim and acquires an angelic image! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* When you find yourself in darkness, seize the opportunity; study the darkness, get to know it, learn how to live with it for a while, and work on the secrets of darkness until you meet the light again! Meeting the devil is also an opportunity; when you examine his world, a shield will form around you to protect you from him! If you are going to enter a battle, there is no better strategy than knowing your enemy! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You look at the sky and all the clouds are completely green! Can you get used to that? You have to get used to something you can’t change! And if you don’t like this new change and you have the power to change it, never get used to it, change it! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you’re overjoyed by success and devastated by failure, then you have understood neither success nor failure, because success is a silent, inner celebration, and failure is a time to rise again with a powerful shake-off! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Those who see the world as too big cannot see the universe as too big, because arrogance magnifies its own reality and diminishes other realities! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Hard to get there, hard to come back from! What is the name of this place? A war front, the brother of hell! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Did sitting and thinking quietly make you feel good? Only for a while! Did sitting and talking with someone make you feel good? Only for a while! You should only do everything for a while, because in this life, those who go the farthest are the ones who behave most balanced! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You will either play the game of happiness by adopting a very ordinary character with your little dreams, or you will set yourself big, universal dreams and strive for true happiness by persistently pursuing these serious and grand goals – even if you can never reach them and suffer greatly along the way! This second path is the path of strong characters! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Student: Master, one person leaves a mark in this life, it disappears after ten years, another after a hundred, or a thousand years; since all the marks we leave will vanish, why leave a mark at all? Master: To do better, to leave a more lasting mark! Leave a mark that will disappear in a million years, or a billion! We must always strive to be better than those who came before us! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* A door that opens everywhere, and a wall that opens nowhere; life and death! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you feel the need to walk in the rain, know that the rain is just an excuse! What you really need is to think, think about your problems or questions, and if you have any, find the solutions and answers! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Getting attention is much easier than not getting attention! Avoiding attention might require doing a lot, but getting attention only requires a simple, quirky thing! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you did an important and difficult humanitarian aid just to be a hero, even if you’ve earned the title of hero, you’re not a hero! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Sometimes a door you wish would open for you opens for someone else, and you’re deeply hurt, but then you realize that it wasn’t actually opened to protect you! And then you ask yourself, who protected me? Many things come to your mind, gods, spirits, and so on, but it doesn’t occur to you that the one protecting you is yourself, your confidence in your own future, your belief in yourself! Just as your body has an immune system, your mind has a mysterious immune system, protecting you, opening and closing doors, as if it can see what you cannot! The only condition for this system to work is to have unwavering faith in your own future! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Give me a beautiful atmosphere that excites me, and I will create a wonderful sculpture, write a good poem, produce a good novel and beautiful thoughts, paint a beautiful picture, and compose magnificent music! Atmosphere is an incredible catalyst; a whip that drives you to create, a real igniter; an extraordinarily powerful locomotive that pulls you into the act of creating something! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The entire history of humanity has been a struggle between the foolish ideas of the majority and the wise ideas of the minority! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* A wise person, if he doesn’t like your ideas, will try to defeat you with counter-arguments; a foolish and ignorant person, if he doesn’t like your ideas, will try to defeat you physically because it’s impossible for him to defeat you intellectually! Is it possible for a cobra to defeat you mentally? No, it will attack you physically because it doesn’t possess the intellectual tools to gain a mental advantage over you! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Those responsible for war are always primarily those who make the decision to go to war, and subsequently those who fight by obeying that decision! If people refuse to fight based on orders from above, there will never be a war! Even if the decision to go to war is made by a politician or a dictator, it is the people, those who obey the orders, who keep the war going! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Master: A terrible storm is approaching you from the only path you can take! What do you understand from this? Student: I understand that I must turn back and escape immediately! Master: You haven’t understood the real message! Never in life leave yourself in a position where you can only walk on one path! Always have alternative paths to the right or left, here or there, but always! If you have only one path, you are in danger; if you have a hundred paths, you are safer! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The crowds at the funeral of a leader who did not grant freedom to his people during his lifetime are nothing more than a disreputable and dishonourable statistic, merely indicating the number of enemies of freedom! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* There are journeys that end other journeys! You board the train, the journey begins; you start reading a good book on the train, another journey begins, and the train journey disappears! Whichever journey touches your soul, you journey towards it. While reading a book, you see someone interesting, and this time your book journey ends! Every journey is defeated by a more interesting one; the mind is like a train constantly changing tracks! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Her şeyin mükemmel olduğu bir dünya düşün; şunu daha iyi hale getirelim ya da bunu daha güzel hale getirelim, bunların hiçbirine yer yok, geliştirebileceğin hiçbir şey yok, her şey mükemmel, her şey gelebileceği ya da olabileceği son noktaya gelmiş! Evet, aynı şeyi düşünüyoruz, çok sıkıcı olurdu dünya; bu tıpkı hedefe varıp artık hedefsiz kalmak gibi bir felaket, amaçsızlık çukuruna düşmek gibi bir bela! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Master: If you’re going north, forget the south; if you’re going east, forget the west! What do you understand from this? Student: I understand nothing, master! Master: Concentrate on where you’re heading! If you’re going into the rain, forget the sun; if you’re going into the darkness, forget the light; if you’re running into the storm, forget calmness! Embrace the spirit of the place you’re heading to! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The deep sea is frightening, but a deep person is not, because we know the depth of the sea to some extent, but we rarely know the depth of the person in front of us! The deepest person may seem the most superficial! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Student: Master, can you tell me something that best describes life? Master: Everything could have been so different, but it turned out exactly like this! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Look, my friend, if you’re carrying heavy loads, you should be carrying them to achieve your great goals! Don’t endure heavy burdens for small purposes, for petty goals! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you’re not prepared for anything, anything can knock you down! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* With a key, you can both lock and unlock a door! With words, you can both crown and end a relationship! With the same tool, you can bring both darkness and light! You can be the one who opens and closes, the one who elevates and the one who lowers! You can play the angel or the devil! Remember, once you step onto the stage, you have the potential to determine how the play is performed and how it ends! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Does life’s challenges and negative situations wear people down, or is it the inability to develop a good and effective strategy in the face of those challenges and negative situations? The honest answer to this question is the latter! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The universe is not an imaginary entity, and if you see the universe as a real god, you don’t need to show anyone any proof because it is real, it is there, it is at work, it explodes, it destroys, it burns, it creates life, it destroys life! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Sometimes the solution to a problem is so easy that it’s incredibly difficult to solve because the mind fails to see the simplest solution and gets lost among the most complex ones! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* The sun won’t always be shining on you throughout your life; from time to time, darkness and shadows will descend upon you, and how your life unfolds will be determined by how effectively you utilize the strength you accumulated while in the sun, when you are in the darkness! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* When we encounter a super-AI far more intelligent than ourselves, if we applaud it instead of getting angry or jealous, humanity will have behaved in a manner befitting itself in this new age of AI! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* If you surrender yourself to the crowd, you betray yourself, because the crowd rules you, and when you are ruled, that’s when your freedom is gone, that is, you are gone, and who comes in your place? An uncertain fate determined by the herd! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Humanity has an evolutionary progression, and so far the universe has, to a certain extent, allowed this progress, but whether it will allow it in the future is unknown! Evolutionary progress needs to transform into revolutionary progress! Think about the first bicycle and then think about the bicycles of today; revolutionary progress means being able to foresee the 5th generation or 20th generation bicycle while making the first bicycle, and being able to make the first bicycle as a 5th or 20th generation bicycle! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Why do wolves howl? Is it a ritual for the moon? Or a way of communicating with other wolves in the distance? A warning to other wolves? Look, my friend, if you want to be captivated by the magic of that wolf howl and enter an unknown dimension in the forest, leave those questions behind, open your ears and listen, just listen! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* There is neither beauty nor ugliness, only the judgment of the mind! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Do you want to be ridiculed, looked down upon, and treated like a devil? It’s very easy: dress or think way ahead of your time! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* What you’re searching for far away might be right next to you; and what you’re searching for right next to you might be far away! To find what you’re looking for, you should frequently update where you’re searching! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* You’ve reached the age of 80 and gained wisdom. Will it do you any good? Not really! The most valuable wisdom is that attained in youth! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* When you see a crowd that doesn’t know what they’re doing, and you ask them what they are doing, they’ll most likely tell you what they’re doing, and most likely they still don’t really know what they’re doing at all! Crowds often act absurdly! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* It is foolish to try to explain the world’s most complex thought in the most complex way; genius lies in being able to explain the most complex things in the simplest way! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Close your eyes, it’s okay; plug your ears, it’s okay; tie your hands and feet, it’s okay; but never turn off your mind, it must always be on because it is what will shed light on the darkness in your life! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
* Low spirits? What’s low spirits? There’s no such thing as low spirits, only weakness of willpower! ~ Mehmet Murat ildan
Mehmet Murat ildan Quotations 