Bahram Beyzai
Bahram Beyzai (26 December 1938 – 26 December 2025) was an Iranian filmmaker, playwright, theatre director, researcher, and ostād ("master") of Persian literature, mythology, and Iranian studies.
Quotes
[edit]- I do not endorse ignorance. I love these people, but not their ignorance. I love the potential within them—the potential that can lead to their awakening
«من جهالت را تأیید نمیکنم، عاشق این مردمم ولی نه عاشق جهالتشان. عاشق آن استعدادی هستم که درونشان هست و میتواند به جهش آنها بیانجامد.»
- https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/12269414 جدال با جهل (Struggle with Ignorance).
- People are like mirrors. A tarnished mirror makes you appear dim; a cracked mirror makes you seem broken; a polished or warped mirror shows you straight or distorted. But that is different from who you truly are
«آری، آدمیان به آینهها شبیهاند. آینهٔ زنگاربسته تو را کدر نشان میدهد و آینهٔ ترکخورده تو را شکسته، و آینهٔ صیقلین یا مواج تو را صاف یا معوج؛ و این جز آن است که تو صاف باشی یا شکسته یا کدر یا زنگاربسته…»
- طومار شیخ شرزین (The Scroll of Sheikh Sharzin), screenplay.[1]
- We are a people who have forgotten their past and are confused about their present
- Iran is not a country that began with Islam, nor one that ended with i
- Our mythology is not dead — it is merely sleeping, and it sleeps inside us.
- I gradually realized that the entire culture of the country had become a form of cultural imitation.
- "Protest and claim of responsibility", Rastaxiz-e Javanan. 28.
- My parents were Baha'is and I grew up in a Baha'i family. But my religion is a culture. My religion is not a religion itself. Religion is a personal belief and it does not belong to anyone in the world.
- I was born in this country and I have as much right to work and live as you do, and I certainly have more right to cinema than you, who have done nothing but prevent my work. I am a filmmaker, and it is because of my existence and that of other filmmakers that you sit behind that table, in a room from which you treat us like slaves, listening to orders and taking orders?
Works
[edit]- O Wisdom,
why do you dwell in the minds of the wicked, if you are truly wisdom? Why do you aid them, so that mounted upon you, they strive in the shedding of others' blood «آه خِرَد، چرا در سرِ بددلان جای میکنی اگر خردی؟ چرا ایشان را یار میشوی، که سوار بر بارهٔ تو، در خون این و آن کوشند؟»
- Yes, I too became suspicious like you.
Why do we take every good thing for evil? Is it not because we have seen so much evil «آری من نیز چون شما به دل بد آوردم! چرا هر نیک را بد میگیریم؟ از آن نیست که همواره بد دیدهایم؟»
- We thought ourselves wise in all things,
while wisdom laughed at us. Foolish is the one who thinks he can outwit a world that forever outwits «خود را بینا شمردیم بر همه چیز؛ و خِرَد به ما میخندید! نادان آنکه شیوه زند به گیهانِ شیوهزن!»
- We are the losers of a world whose foundations were laid before we were born
«آری، ما باختهٔ این جهانیم، که پیش از زادنِ ما پی ریختند!»
- Have you thought about it? Your opposition makes me appear more frightening than I really am. That's actually useful, because then no one dares challenge me
«هیچ فکرشو کردی؟ تو با مخالفتت منو ترسناکتر از اونچه هستم نشون میدی. این خودش خیلی خوبه. چون دیگه کسی جرئت نمیکنه با من دربیفته.»
- چهار صندوق (Four Boxes).[3]
- What is the use of the name we attach to ourselves, when behind it we are someone else
«چه فایده از اسمی که به خود میبندیم؛ وقتی پشت آن کسِ دیگریم!»
- تاراجنامه (Taraj-nameh).[4]
- They speak of him endlessly; yet those who speak, why are they not like him themselves?
«از او بسیار میگویند؛ و آنها که میگویند چرا خود چون او نیستند؟»
- روز واقعه (The Day of the Event).[5]
- "Everything we have comes from the King."
"But we have nothing."
"That too comes from the King." «ما هرچه داریم از پادشاه است.»
«ما که چیزی نداریم.»
«آن نیز از پادشاه است!»
- Whoever you are — king or beggar — you came to our door, and now you are ours to answer for.
- An arrow that carries a whole people's life cannot miss
- "A young falcon longed to fly;
we ignored him, and Turan gave him wings." «بچه شاهینی پروازش آرزو؛ ما وی را ندیده گرفتیم، و توران بال داد.»
- We all die with the antidote already in our hands.
«ما همه نوشدارو در دست میمیریم!»
- What have I to offer this body but tears?
With what shall I wash this wound, when it was made not by a stranger, but by my own?
«جز اشک چه دارم ارزانیِ این پیکر کنم؟ به چه شویم این زخم را که نه از بیگانه، از خویش است؟»
