Knowledge is like water and air: it is every citizen's right to enjoy it for free. - Taha Hussein

We do not wish, nor are we able, to break the link between ourselves and our forefathers. To the degree that we establish our future life upon our past and present we shall avoid most of the dangers caused by excesses and miscalculations deriving from illusions and dreams.

I do not like illusions. I am persuaded that it is only God who can create something from nothing.

The future of this cultural work—its continuity or its decline—hinges on the existence of a (political and cultural) national agreement between state and society on the fact that culture is a strategic necessity that cannot be delayed, partitioned or rely on individual or private initiative. It is, in short, institutional work, a state project worthy of a country with an ancient civilization established on a mindset shaped by the arts. This project represents a building operation for a people’s spirit, a nation’s conscience, an identity’s anchoring, and a revolution’s triumph over the advocates of obscurity and backwardness.