Top 40 Taslima Nasrin Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Religion is against women’s rights and women’s freedom. In all societies women are oppressed by all religions.”

— Taslima Nasrin

2. “I want to live in Kolkata; I don’t want to live in Europe – I can’t write there. I write in Bengali, and I need to be surrounded by the Bengali language and culture.”

— Taslima Nasrin

3. “Let humanity be the other name for religion.”

— Taslima Nasrin

4. “There is no such thing as a ‘superior’ or ‘inferior’ culture, there are only various cultural patterns which make up this beautiful, multicolored mosaic.”

— Taslima Nasrin

5. “I believe in absolute freedom of expression. Everyone has a right to offend and be offended.”

— Taslima Nasrin

6. “In traditional societies, we have a long legacy of men controlling the body and mind of women. Such societies have valorised motherhood and fabricated concepts like chastity. Women have been the victims of these notions for thousands of years.”

— Taslima Nasrin

7. “When I write, I don’t allow the fear of consequences to interfere with the writing process. I have in the past paid for my commitment to the truth and the way I live my life. I am prepared to pay more if I have to.”

— Taslima Nasrin

8. “Religion, society and state – from none of these do women get their proper honor. It is religion, which has created an unparalleled disparity between men and women.”

— Taslima Nasrin

9. “I strongly believe that no one can be a true feminist without being an atheist. All religions are anti-women. No one can be pro-woman while supporting anti-woman dogmas.”

— Taslima Nasrin

10. “All I ever want is to return to either Bangladesh, my motherland, or India, my adopted home.”

— Taslima Nasrin

11. “Among all the ‘awards’ that I have hitherto collected, I consider the title of ‘patita’ or ‘fallen woman’ to be the highest. This is an achievement of my long-struggling life as a writer and as a woman.”

— Taslima Nasrin

12. “Nature says women are human beings, men have made religions to deny it. Nature says women are human beings, men cry out no!”

— Taslima Nasrin

13. “It is unfair to label me anti-Islam. I am an atheist and a secular humanist.”

— Taslima Nasrin

14. “I support the rights of all people to practice their religious beliefs privately, but I oppose the idea of respecting religions. In truth, I have no respect for any religion. I believe religion is not compatible with human rights, women’s rights, or freedom of expression.”

— Taslima Nasrin

15. “Sheikh Hasina’s government is one of the best Bangladesh has ever had. She is taking action against fundamentalists. But even she refused to let me return. I don’t think I can ever return home.”

— Taslima Nasrin

16. “Women are oppressed in the east, in the west, in the south, in the north. Women are oppressed inside, outside home, a woman is oppressed in religion, she is oppressed outside religion.”

— Taslima Nasrin

17. “The Bengalis saw endless bloodshed and trouble from 1947 to 1971 and this culminated in the Liberation War of 1971. The blood of 3 million Bengalis helped earn this freedom and also proved that religion could never be the foundation of a national identity. Language, culture and history provide the foundations for a national identity.”

— Taslima Nasrin

18. “Koranic teaching still insists that the sun moves around the earth. How can we advance when they teach things like that?”

— Taslima Nasrin

19. “The focus of my research is how secular movements originated in West Asian countries and subsequently changed to pan-Islamic movements. The role of Western countries in this aspect is also a part of the research.”

— Taslima Nasrin

20. “Aggressive, crazed Hindus had broken the Babri Masjid and the Hindus of Bangladesh were expected to atone for the wrongs done by those people.”

— Taslima Nasrin

21. “I studied in a medical college and qualified myself as a medical graduate.”

— Taslima Nasrin

22. “I was born in a middle class Muslim family, in a small town called Myonenningh in a northern part of Bangladesh in 1962. My father is a qualified physician; my mother is a housewife. I have two elder brothers and one younger sister. All of them received a liberal education in schools and colleges.”

— Taslima Nasrin

23. “I’m an atheist, and I believe religion is totally against human rights and women’s rights.”

— Taslima Nasrin

24. “Religion is now the first obstacle to women’s advancement. Religion pulls human beings backwards, it goes against science and progressiveness. Religion engulfs people with a fear of the supernatural. It bars people from laughing and never allows people to exercise their choice.”

— Taslima Nasrin

25. “I am an atheist. I do not believe in prayers, I believe in work. And my work is that of an author. My pen is my weapon.”

— Taslima Nasrin

26. “According to Abdul Kalam Azad, ‘It is one of the greatest frauds on the people to suggest that religious affinity can unite areas which are geographically, economically, linguistically and culturally different.”

— Taslima Nasrin

27. “Every religion oppresses women. I talk about the Koran because I know this book best. It allows for torture and other mistreatment, especially for women. And I despise the Sharia laws. They cannot be changed. They must be thrown out, abolished.”

— Taslima Nasrin

28. “If any religion allows the persecution of the people of different faiths, if any religion keeps women in slavery, if any religion keeps people in ignorance, then I can’t accept that religion.”

— Taslima Nasrin

29. “I write against the religion because if women want to live like human beings, they will have to live outside the religion and Islamic law.”

— Taslima Nasrin

30. “The fundamentalists are increasing. People, afraid to oppose those fundamentalists, shut their mouths. It is really very difficult to make people move against a sensitive issue like religion, which is the source of fundamentalism.”

— Taslima Nasrin

31. “People don’t leave their homeland simply because governments stage events. One’s native land is not like the soil we put in flowerpots, where we pour water and fertilizer and then change the soil after an interval.”

— Taslima Nasrin

32. “I am not scared of anyone. I will write and publish my books.”

— Taslima Nasrin

33. “Jonathan Swift: ‘We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

— Taslima Nasrin

34. “There are some people who are untranslatable.”

— Taslima Nasrin

35. “I have had fatwas issued against me, some three in Bangladesh and another five in India. I will not be cowed by these threats and shall fight for my rights.”

— Taslima Nasrin

36. “If I say that I’m educated and was jobless in Dhaka, that I want to work here, build myself a healthy, beautiful life, the kind of life that everyone dreams of, they’d just throw me out of the country. Political asylum they may just allow, but economical asylum – never!”

— Taslima Nasrin

37. “Those religions that are oppressive to women are also against democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression.”

— Taslima Nasrin

38. “Those who are creating the riots are not in tune with their religion. They want to plunder and destroy. Don’t you know why the sweet shops get ravaged? People hanker after sweets. And gold shops too, because of greed for gold. It’s the criminals and hoodlums who are on this spree of loot and plunder. There’s really no conflict between the communities.”

— Taslima Nasrin

39. “It’s foolish to confront a weapon with bare hands.”

— Taslima Nasrin

40. “Sudhamoy consoled himself with the thought that it was not about Hindus and Muslims but about the strong torturing the weak whenever possible. Women are weak and so strong men torment them.”

— Taslima Nasrin

41. “If you are rich, it doesn’t matter whether you are Hindu or Muslim, that is how a capitalist society works. Take a look, poverty-stricken Muslims are in a similar situation. The rich, be they Hindu or Muslim, are subjugating the poor.”

— Taslima Nasrin

42. “I have been writing poetry since 1975. My first poetry book was published in 1986.”

— Taslima Nasrin

43. “Even today, the politics of religion does not allow the subcontinent to become civilized and its people to become truly educated.”

— Taslima Nasrin

44. “Riots mean fights – a conflict between one community and another is called a riot. But we cannot call these riots – these were attacks by one community on another. Torture. Persecution.”

— Taslima Nasrin

45. “Religious fundamentalists in Bangladesh have always argued for a ban on my books.”

— Taslima Nasrin