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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Tariq Ali Quotes

A storm swept the world in 1968. It started in Vietnam, then blew across Asia, crossing the sea and the mountains to Europe and beyond. A brutal war waged by the U.S. against a poor southeast Asian country was seen every night on television.

– Tariq Ali

As a candidate, Obama projected himself as a new Reagan, above narrow party politics. He wanted to please all but has ended up annoying many.

– Tariq Ali

Scotland’s political identity was destroyed, and a huge Scottish emigration to North America followed the brutal Highland clearances. These included every layer of Scottish society, not just the remnants of the defeated clans.

– Tariq Ali

Anthony Powell was the most European of 20th-century British novelists.

– Tariq Ali

In times of crisis, the incumbent suffers. And the bigger the crisis, the greater the punishment inflicted on those in power unless they do something that makes a change.

– Tariq Ali

Young women and men who joined the far-left groups did so for the best of reasons. They wanted to change the world. Many fought against the stifling atmosphere in many groups.

– Tariq Ali

When I arrived to study at Oxford in October 1963, the bohemian style was black plastic or leather jackets for women and black leather or navy donkey jackets for men. I stuck to cavalry twills and a duffle coat, at least for a few months.

– Tariq Ali

The only decent daily paper of record in France is the online ‘Mediapart,’ which exposes graft and corruption in high places and is feared by the establishment.

– Tariq Ali

Political pundits in Delhi and Islamabad have berated the West for its relativism and double-standards. After all why should Britain have a nuclear arsenal but not India? It is a reasonable question.

– Tariq Ali

Scandinavia was awash with Maoism in the ’70s. Sweden had Maoist groups with a combined membership and periphery of several thousand members, but it was Norway where Maoism became a genuine popular force and hegemonic in the culture.

– Tariq Ali

I don’t regret what I did in the Sixties. I was young and took myself terribly seriously. In the Seventies, I spent too much time in inner-party factional disputes.

– Tariq Ali

In some ways, the ’60s were a reaction to the ’50s and the intensity of the Cold War.

– Tariq Ali

To dissociate politicians from capitalists is slightly disingenuous, to put it mildly. U.S. lawmakers are competitive and auction themselves to the highest bidder via the lobby system.

– Tariq Ali

I am an atheist and do not know the meaning of the ‘religious pain’ that is felt by believers of every cast when what they believe in is insulted.

– Tariq Ali

I am fully aware of the concept of political revolutions. After all, that is what we hoped might happen in the U.S.S.R. and Eastern Europe, but what actually happened was capitalist restoration.

– Tariq Ali

In the Seventies, we still had dreams and hopes of Utopia, but by the end of the decade, the world had shifted to the right.

– Tariq Ali

I was in my mid-teens when someone gave me a copy of ‘Pears Encyclopaedia of Myth and Legends’ as a birthday present. It sat on my shelves for many months before I looked at it. When I did, I couldn’t stop reading it.

– Tariq Ali

The origins of Indian classical music, not unlike their western counterparts, lie in the Vedas, the ancient Hindu scriptures of 2,000 years ago.

– Tariq Ali

We were constantly appealing for funds from readers when I edited ‘The Black Dwarf’ in 1968-69.

– Tariq Ali

Socially, the Cuban revolution created an education system and health service that remain the envy of much of the neo-liberal world.

– Tariq Ali

As long as the Pentagon bankrolls the Pakistan army to fight its wars, and NATO troops remain in Afghanistan, there will be quarrels, charges of infidelity, a reduction in the household allowance, perhaps a separation – but a divorce? Never.

– Tariq Ali

I think democracy is on the decline in the West. Ruling parties are the same: neo-liberalism at home and wars abroad.

– Tariq Ali

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