Murtaza Syed
@murtazahsyed
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AIIB | Deputy Governor, SBP | IMF | Mahbub ul Haq | IFS | Oxford | "In the end, no one will remember what u said. They will only remember how u made them feel."
Beijing, China
Joined July 2015
At the @IMFNews, one of the departments I used to work for many moons ago was called SPR. It's quite an important one there, and has ebbed and flowed some over the years. Here is an ode I wrote to it yesterday in @FTAlphaville, with thanks to @RobinWigg
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Nothing taught by force stays in the soul — Plato *** sitam sikhlaega rasm-e-wafa aise nahin hota sanam dikhlaenge raah-e-khuda aise nahin hota Tyranny teaching us the fidelity of Love It cannot be so False idols leading us to the true God It can never be so — Faiz
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Everybody knows the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows the boat is leaking Everybody knows that the captain lied Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That's how it goes Everybody knows —Leonard Cohen
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We seem to have inherited a house, which has no windows and its walls are very high … and it is very difficult to know, whether we have inherited a house or a prison … — Professor Abdus Salam (Pakistan’s first Nobel laureate)
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And He knows whatever has been treasured by mother-of-pearls, and covered under the waves of oceans, all that which is concealed under the darkness of night and all that on which the light of day is shining — Hazrat Ali ibn Abi Talib
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If a judge makes a ruling, striving to apply his reasoning and he is correct, he will have two rewards If a judge makes a ruling, striving to apply his reasoning and he is mistaken, he will have one reward — Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him)
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You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming *** Those tyrants will have no victories not today not tomorrow so what if they douse the candles in rooms where lovers meet if they are so mighty let them try and snuff out the moon — Faiz meets Neruda
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Let me not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless in facing them Let me not beg for the stilling of my pain but for the heart to conquer it — Rabindranath Tagore
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Bring me the execution order so I too can see The names of all those who have deigned to send me to the gallows lao to qatl-nama mera main bhi dekh lun kis kis ki mohr hai sar-e-mahzar lagi hui — Faiz https://t.co/8UnMAQ4Y8q
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Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them — Bertrand Russell
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Mere mulk de do khuda Laa ilaa te marshal laa Ik rehnda ae arshaan utte Dooja rehnda farshaan utte Saade des che mojan ee mojan Jiddar wekho fojan ee fojan — Ustaad Daman https://t.co/8gk044RkLB
dawn.com
Probably the greatest Punjabi poet of Lahore who epitomised the defiant spirit of this ancient city was Ustad Daman....
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If you wish for a pearl You must leave the desert And wander by the sea And even if you never find The gleaming pearl, at least You will not have failed to reach the water — Hakim Sanai (Afghan poet from the 11th century)
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Once upon a time, some friends of Faiz organized a meeting to celebrate his birthday. In the evening, the police dumped them in jail. As this distinguished crowd entered the precincts, a prisoner asked which political party they belonged to. ‘The birthday party,’ they replied
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Dhu-l-Nun was asked “What is the end of the knower ?” He answered “When he is as he was where he was before he was” — Dhu-l-Nun, 9th Century Egyptian Mystic
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Half of life is lost in charming others The other half is lost in going through anxieties caused by others Leave this play You have played enough — Rumi
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When rulers impose unjust taxes, confiscate property without right or fabricate accusations, they erode trust Once people lose confidence in justice, the state’s foundations crumble Injustice is a poison that heralds the downfall of a civilization — Ibn Khaldun (paraphrased)
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Kar raha tha gham-e-jahaan ka hisaab Aaj tum yaad be-hisaab aaye Today, while recounting the many injustices of life Your memory came to my mind time after time — Faiz Ahmed Faiz (Keeping score, Bangalore Stadium)
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Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison … … the only house in a slave state in which a free man can abide with honour — Henry David Thoreau
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A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honours, the men it remembers — JFK (1963)
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It is not the length of life, but the depth — Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Orchestral maneuvers in the dark, on the avenues of Beijing (Dancing in the streets meets awara hoon)
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