When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.
Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality.
Education is the best weapon through which we can fight poverty, ignorance and terrorism.
In Islam, it is not just your right, but your responsibility to get education.
I am stronger than fear.
So today, we call upon the world leaders to change their strategic policies in favor of peace and prosperity. We call upon the world leaders that all of these deals must protect women and children’s rights. A deal that goes against the rights of women is unacceptable.
Once I had asked God for one or two extra inches in height, but instead he made me as tall as the sky, so high that I could not measure myself.
Pakistan is a peace loving, democratic country. Pashtuns want education for their daughters and sons. Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood.
I was a girl in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while daughters are hidden away behind a curtain, their role in life simply to prepare food and give birth to children.
There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a third power stronger than both, that of women.
In Pakistan when women say they want independence, people think this means we don’t want to obey our fathers, brothers or husbands. But it does not mean that. It means we want to make decisions for ourselves. We want to be free to go to school or to go to work. Nowhere is it written in the Quran that a woman should be dependent on a man. The word has not come down from the heavens to tell us that every woman should listen to a man.
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
Kindness can only be repaid with kindness. It can’t be repaid with expressions like ‘thank you’ and then forgotten.
What a strange world it was when a girl who wanted to go to school had to defy militants with machine guns – as well as her own family.
Someone gave me a copy of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, a fable about a shepherd boy who travels to the Pyramids in search of treasure when all the time it’s at home. I loved that book and read it over and over again. ‘When you want something all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it,’ it says. I don’t think that Paulo Coelho had come across the Taliban or our useless politicians.
Some people are afraid of ghosts, some of spiders or snakes- in those days we were afraid of our fellow human beings.
To sit down on a chair and read my books with all my friends at school is my right. To see each and every human being with a smile of happiness is my wish. I am Malala. My world has changed but I have not.
How great God is! He has given us eyes to see the beauty of the world, hands to touch it, a nose to experience all its fragrance, and a heart to appreciate it all. But we don’t realize how miraculous our senses are until we lose one.
It is my belief God sends the solution first and the problem later,” replied Dr. Javid.
We Pashtuns love shoes but don’t love the cobbler; we love our scarves and blankets but do not respect the weaver. Manual workers made a great contribution to our society but received no recognition, and this is the reason so many of them joined the Taliban – to finally achieve status and power.