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Turkey

country spanning Western Asia and Southeastern Europe
This entry is about the country; for the bird, see Turkeys.
I love Turkey. I first traveled there in my early twenties, when I was obsessed by the 1915 Dardanelles campaign. I immediately liked the people — brave, stoical, generous, hospitable and patriotic, if a little inclined to conspiracy theories. I saw Turkey as a model for the region. ~ Daniel Hannan
Understand this: Turkey is a country whose warnings should be taken seriously and listened to. Don't test Turkey's patience. Try to win its friendship. ~ Serdar Kilic

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), officially the Republic of Turkey, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in southwestern Asia and the Balkan region of southeastern Europe.

A – B – C – D – E – F – G – H – I – J – K – L – M – N – O – P – Q – R – S – T – U – V – W – X – Y – Z – Misattributed – See also

QuotesEdit

 
Your Majesty may think me an impatient sick man, and that the Turks are even sicker. ~ Voltaire
 
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. ~ Thomas Paine
 
Corruption and bribery have ceased to be criminal acts in Turkey. ~ Tim Franks
 
I think that I have said that at three or four meetings before rather than us talking about the problem of Cyprus which makes that it becomes a problem for the Republic as it is worldwide known we ought to talk about the problem of Turkey, it is really a 100% Turkish problem that they're not acting in the way in which they should be acting and if that's the case well shove it to them. ~ Rudi Vis

AEdit

  • Even before accepting the religion of the Arabs, the Turks were a great nation. After accepting the religion of the Arabs, this religion, didn't effect to combine the Arabs, the Persians and Egyptians with the Turks to constitute a nation. (This religion) rather, loosened the national nexus of Turkish nation, got national excitement numb. This was very natural. Because the purpose of the religion founded by Muhammad, over all nations, was to drag to an including Arab national politics.
    • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, as quoted in Medenî Bilgiler ve M. Kemal Atatürk'ün El Yazıları [Civics and M. Kemal Atatürk's Manuscripts] (1998) by Afet İnan, p. 364
  • ...O Turkish child of future generations! As you see, even under these circumstances and conditions, it is your duty to save the Turkish Independence and the Republic! The strength that you will need is present in the noble blood which flows in your veins!
  • The Republic of Turkey cannot be a country of sheikhs, dervishes, and disciples. The truest, most real order is the order of civilisation.

CEdit

  • Turkey is the norm in Islam. Turkey has a secular constitution. It's a democratic society where you have gender equality between men and women. It's a member of NATO and is in accession talks with the European Union. It's a friend.

DEdit

  • Charge of inferiority is an old dodge. It has been made available for oppression on many occasions... When Russia wanted to take possession of a part of the Ottoman Empire, the Turks were 'an inferior race.'

FEdit

  • People in the judiciary and the police carried out investigations and launched this case, as their duties normally require. Apparently they weren't informed of the fact that corruption and bribery have ceased to be criminal acts in Turkey.

HEdit

  • I love Turkey. I first traveled there in my early twenties, when I was obsessed by the 1915 Dardanelles campaign. I immediately liked the people — brave, stoical, generous, hospitable and patriotic, if a little inclined to conspiracy theories. I saw Turkey as a model for the region, a successful, Western-oriented Muslim democracy.

KEdit

  • Understand this: Turkey is a country whose warnings should be taken seriously and listened to. Don't test Turkey's patience. Try to win its friendship.

OEdit

PEdit

  • All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.

SEdit

  • We all know the Turkish state is in a position to control its borders. It is not failed state, it is a proper functioning state so we have to negotiate with Turkey for its responsibilities. It is not like Libya which is ungovernable.

VEdit

  • ...I think that I have said that at three or four meetings before rather than us talking about the problem of Cyprus which makes that it becomes a problem for the Republic as it is worldwide known we ought to talk about the problem of Turkey, it is really a 100% Turkish problem that they're not acting in the way in which they should be acting and if that's the case well shove it to them!
    • Rudi Vis, [At the Friends of Cyprus meeting in the Jubilee Room at the House of Commons, 3rd July 2007] (see External links for transcript).
  • I hate calumny so much that I do not want even to impute foolishness to the Turks, although I detest them as tyrants over women and enemies of the arts.

WEdit

  • We became acquainted we found the people, whether Christian or Turkish, prevailingly of a friendly, kindly, progressive type, as is often the case with simple-minded people in times of peace.
    • George Edward White (1940). Adventuring with Anatolia College. Herald-Register. pp. p. 18. 
  • I always liked the common Turkish people unless they were stirred to passion by militarists.
    • George Edward White (1940). Adventuring with Anatolia College. Herald-Register. pp. p. 18. 
  • In the College two classes were called preparatory, while four bore the ordinary college class names. The schools from which our students came did not carry them far. When Americans first came to Turkey, hardly any vernacular was taught anywhere. Instruction was in classic tongues and religious lore. But our students for the most part came with a purpose in modern life. They wanted to attain a worth-while and useful manhood and they felt that the College could give them a start.
    • George Edward White (1940). Adventuring with Anatolia College. Herald-Register. pp. p. 19. 
  • One student told me in after years that when he came to Marsovan [a city in Turkey] he was really illiterate, that is, he could not fairly read his native tongue, or any other. But he had no chance of learning more in his native village. For a number of months he was cow-boy for an American family, and eagerly studying too.
    • George Edward White (1940). Adventuring with Anatolia College. Herald-Register. pp. p. 19. 
  • Another time I was riding alone with a Circassian, and in the talk of man to man in such companionship, asked him a bit about his occupation and his affairs. "Sometimes I get a traveller to escort, like you", he replied, "and then I take him, but my regular business is smuggling tobacco. Every man in our village has a regular job, some are smugglers, some are farmers, and some are thieves". I asked him about his chance of getting caught, and he promptly said, "There are two kinds of smugglers; one kind gets caught and one kind doesn't get caught", and he added a pious expression of gratitude to the good Lord that he never had been put to shame yet. We knew very well that the mounted police of Anatolia were largely recruited from among the robbers and smugglers of the mountain roads. One of the most effective ways of securing official employment, and who knows what promotion later, was to acquire the reputation of a daring hold-up man on the mountains."
    • George Edward White (1940). Adventuring with Anatolia College. Herald-Register. pp. p. 25. 

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical QuotationsEdit

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 823.
  • The unspeakable Turk should be immediately struck out of the question, and the country be left to honest European guidance.
    • Thomas Carlyle, letter to a meeting at St. James Hall, London, 1876. See also his article on 'Das Niebelungen Lied in Westminster Review. 1831. No. 29. Also his Letter to George Howard, Nov. 24, 1876.
  • [Turks] one and all, bag and baggage, shall I hope clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned.
  • The Lofty Gate of the Royal Tent.
    • Mahomet II. It was translated "La Porte Sublima" by the Italians. See E. S. Creasy, History of the Ottoman Turks, p. 96, ed. 1877.
  • [The Ottoman Empire] whose sick body was not supported by a mild and regular diet, but by a powerful treatment, which continually exhausted it.
  • We have on our hands a sick man,—a very sick man. [The sick man of Europe, the Turk.]
    • Nicholas I, of Russia. Conversation with Sir George Hamilton Seymour. (1853). See Blue Book (1854).
  • [The Ottoman Empire] has the body of a sick old man, who tried to appear healthy, although his end was near.
    • Sir Thomas Roe, Ambassador to Constantinople. See Buchanan, Letter, 375.
  • Your Majesty may think me an impatient sick man, and that the Turks are even sicker.
    • Voltaire to Catherine II. In the Rundschau (April, 1878).


MisattributedEdit

  • For nearly five hundred years, these rules and theories of an Arab Shaikh and the interpretations of generations of lazy and good-for-nothing priests have decided the civil and criminal law of Turkey. They have decided the form of the Constitution, the details of the lives of each Turk, his food, his hours of rising and sleeping the shape of his clothes, the routine of the midwife who produced his children, what he learned in his schools, his customs, his thoughts-even his most intimate habits. Islam – this theology of an immoral Arab – is a dead thing. Possibly it might have suited tribes in the desert. It is no good for modern, progressive state. God’s revelation! There is no God! These are only the chains by which the priests and bad rulers bound the people down. A ruler who needs religion is a weakling. No weaklings should rule.
    • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, as quoted in Grey Wolf: Mustafa Kemal – An intimate study of a dictator (1932) by Harold Courtenay Armstrong, pp. 199-200

See alsoEdit

External linksEdit

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