Edward Said

The Palestinian cause is not just a cause for Palestinians, but a cause for all who believe in justice and human rights.

The intellectual's role is to be an amateur, someone who considers that what he does is not a way of making a living but is an activity that takes place during free time.

There is no such thing as a pure culture.

Imperialism is an act of geographical violence through which virtually every space in the world is surveyed, charted, and codified.

The power to narrate, or to block other narratives from forming and emerging, is very important to culture and imperialism, and constitutes one of the main connections between them.

The intellectual is an individual with a vocation for the critical examination of society, for the exposure of injustice and oppression, for the assertion of universal values.

The Middle East is a place where history is constantly being rewritten, where the past is always present, where the future is always uncertain.

The Palestinian people have a right to self-determination, to a state of their own, to live in peace and dignity.

The struggle for Palestinian liberation is a struggle for human liberation.

The intellectual must be a dissident, a critic, a voice of opposition.

The media plays a crucial role in shaping public opinion, in constructing narratives, in perpetuating stereotypes.

The representation of Islam in the West is often distorted, biased, and inaccurate.

The intellectual is not an expert, but a generalist, a humanist, a universalist.

The academic world is often complicit in the perpetuation of power structures, in the reproduction of ideologies.

The university should be a place of critical inquiry, of intellectual freedom, of social responsibility.

The role of the intellectual is to disturb the status quo, to challenge established truths, to question authority.

The West has a long history of misrepresenting the East, of constructing it as an exotic, irrational, and inferior other.

The concept of 'terrorism' is often used to demonize and dehumanize those who resist oppression.

The struggle for justice is a universal struggle, a struggle that transcends borders and cultures.

The intellectual's responsibility is to be conscious of the political and social implications of his or her work.