Alija Izetbegovic Quotes

All in all this is a difficult political struggle which will go on for years, in which our people won't die anymore; I'm not sure how much we will be able to win, but I'm certain that we won't loose anything that we have now.

- Alija Izetbegovic

It is difficult to help a man without hurting his pride. Everyone wants to be a giver and not a receiver.

- Alija Izetbegovic

In these negotiations we are not a helpless object, although great world powers are involved. We play an active role and try to influence our destiny; we have our own trump cards and we use them.

- Alija Izetbegovic

A starry sky is equally interesting to a scientist, a mystic, an ethics scholar, and a poet. Looking at the stars, each experiences something different, and each sees his own picture.

- Alija Izetbegovic

All man's failures are either because of the religious denial of man's biological needs or the materialistic denial of man's spiritual desires.

- Alija Izetbegovic

The international community is pushing things forward in Bosnia... but it is doing it at expense of the Muslim people. I feel it as an injustice, these are the things that I cannot live with.

- Alija Izetbegovic

Our goal: the Islamization of Muslims. Our methods: to believe and to struggle.

- Alija Izetbegovic

The ninth, the worst circle of the Inferno - Dante intended it for traitors.

- Alija Izetbegovic

Has it ever happened to you that you actually like a rogue more than a so-called honest citizen? Have you ever wondered why? I believe that this can only be so because a rogue is more original and more his own. He is what he is.

- Alija Izetbegovic

History sometimes makes fun of us and our best intentions.

- Alija Izetbegovic

Religion, as it is understood in the West, does not lead toward progress, and science does not lead toward humanism.

- Alija Izetbegovic

I believe that the people, instead of pretty lies, should be told the truth, no matter how ugly it may be. What can we do, destiny hasn't been kind to us; but, with the help of God, we will prevail.

- Alija Izetbegovic

To seek trouble - this is not courage, this is madness. Courage is the willingness of man to sensibly face the troubles he cannot avoid.

- Alija Izetbegovic

There are only three integral views of the world: the religious, the materialistic, and the Islamic. They reflect three elemental possibilities (conscience, nature, and man), each of them manifesting itself as Christianity, materialism, and Islam.

- Alija Izetbegovic

We have no rational evidence that there exists another world, but we have a clear feeling that man does not exist only to produce and to consume.

- Alija Izetbegovic

As far as the sovereignty of Bosnia-Hercegovina is concerned we agreed to have limited sovereignty for a limited time and that is clear from the Dayton Agreement.

- Alija Izetbegovic

Socialism and freedom are not compatible, regardless of repeated convincings.

- Alija Izetbegovic

Bosnia is a complicated country: three religions, three nations and those 'others'. Nationalism is strong in all three nations; in two of them there are a lot of racism, chauvinism, separatism; and now we are supposed to make a state out of that.

- Alija Izetbegovic

We Bosniaks would for sure fight for integrity of Bosnia.

- Alija Izetbegovic

I would sacrifice peace in order to win sovereignty for Bosnia, but for that peace in Bosnia, I would not sacrifice sovereignty.

- Alija Izetbegovic

Whether man is a product of evolution or is 'created' becomes the question, 'Who is man? Is he part of the world or something different from it?'

- Alija Izetbegovic

When you are in prison, you have but one desire: freedom. If you fall ill in prison, you do not think about freedom - you think about health. Health is, therefore, more important than freedom.

- Alija Izetbegovic

Advantages of freedom do not have to be proved by something outside freedom itself. It is its own underwriter.

- Alija Izetbegovic

Life is a dangerous thing. Insecurity is the price of living.

- Alija Izetbegovic

I took revenge on hardship from my earlier life by forgetting it.

- Alija Izetbegovic

Islam is a way of living rather than a way of thinking.

- Alija Izetbegovic