The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance

And I grew up knowing that living under a dictatorship was bearable, as long as you kept your head down and never criticized the government or the Ba’ath Party, even in private.

He who finds a new path is a path finder, even if the trail has to be found again by others; and he who walks far ahead of his contemporaries is a leader, even though centuries pass before he is recognized as such.