Edward Said

"Authority and force do not mix well; they cannot produce truth."

"The repatriation of knowledge is one of the great intellectual tasks of our time."

"Criticism is always situated; there is no view from nowhere."

"The identity of the intellectual is bound up with a fundamental questioning of authority."

"To speak of the human subject is to speak of someone caught in a web of relations and constraints."

"Imperialism left behind a world divided into metropolitan and subordinate spaces."

"The production of knowledge cannot be separated from the exercise of power."

"Secular humanism remains the highest achievement of human thought."

"Every intellectual has a responsibility to challenge the dominant structures of thought."

"The relationship between knowledge and power is not one of simple cause and effect."

"We must think of the intellectual as someone for whom public questions matter."

"Culture is that which makes life worth living, precisely because it offers meaning and continuity."

"The past does not determine the future, but it does constrain our possibilities."

"To ignore the role of power in the production of knowledge is to be complicit with that power."

"The intellectual's first obligation is to speak the truth as he or she understands it."

"Nationalism, even in its most generous forms, is always ultimately concerned with power."

"The migration of ideas and peoples is part of the fundamental story of human civilization."

"To be displaced is to occupy a unique vantage point from which to view one's culture."

"The intellectual cannot remain aloof from the political struggles of his or her time."

"Memory and history are not the same thing, though they are often confused."

"The freedom to express oneself is predicated upon the freedom to think otherwise."

"Literature is one of the most reliable guides to understanding how cultures see themselves."

"The critic's role is not to provide answers but to question, to make strange the familiar."

"Power operates most effectively when it is not openly acknowledged."

"To understand the world, one must first understand how knowledge about the world is produced."

"The intellectual must cultivate a kind of informed, questioning skepticism."

"Exile can be a condition of heightened consciousness and perception."

"The task of criticism is to delineate the space in which human freedom is possible."

"National identities are constructed through a selective reading of history."

"The work of decolonization involves not just political independence but intellectual independence."