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The West for me means ambition, the East contentment. My heart is ever in one, my soul in the other.

Ameen Rihani

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Ameen Rihani
Age: 63 †
Born: 1876
Born: November 24
Died: 1940
Died: September 13
Essayist
Historian
Novelist
Poet
Politician
Writer
Ottoman Levant
Amīn Fāris Anṭūn ar-Rīḥānī
Ameen Fares Rihani
Amin Rihani
East
Ambition
West
Means
Soul
Ever
Mean
Heart
Contentment

More quotes by Ameen Rihani

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In the Lakes of Light, Love and Will, I would baptize all mankind.
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Self-reliance leads to intellectual independence. Each man must think for himself, must train the mind to think, must habituate the soul to observe and analyze.
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Yes, I am calling for an intellectual revolution that sweeps away the corruption, absurdity and error, which prevail in morals, customs, traditions, and doctrines.
Ameen Rihani
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In the desert you become a discoverer. You discover your soul, which had been submerged in vain pursuits, which had been lost in the coils and toils of modern life. You discover your kinship with nature and man, which is evoked by the naturalness and the gentle humanity of the natives of the desert, and you will also discover God.
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My American walking shoes are new, and my Oriental eyes are old.
Ameen Rihani
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Breathless and unharmed, we emerge from the mazes of metaphysics and psychology where man and the soul are playing hide-and-seek.
Ameen Rihani
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Like matter itself, an ideal is mutable, but indestructible. It does not die it only undergoes a change.
Ameen Rihani
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We can not understand each other, if every time we venture out we stick the feather of cocksureness in our caps. No, we can never wholly understand each other, and rise to the level of mutual esteem at least, if we do not invest in that fellow feeling that triumphs over class and creed and race and color.
Ameen Rihani
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... And if Europe gives Arabia a railway, Arabia gives Europe an idea - which I think balances the account.
Ameen Rihani
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My first wish is to be simple in my actions, truthful in my speech, honest in my opinions, and natural in my behavior. In other words, I want to be clean in mind, heart, and body.
Ameen Rihani
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True up-bringing is restricted to two types of welfare the welfare of the body and that of the mind.
Ameen Rihani
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A poet is a poet, whether he rides in a Ford or on a donkey a sage is a sage, whether he plays golf in New Jersey or bathes in the Ganges, or prays in the desert and a fool is a fool, whether he be a maharaja or a president of a post-war republic.
Ameen Rihani
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Ignorance and fear are twins whose mother is slavery and whose father is oppression, and the mentality of the whole family is that of slaves.
Ameen Rihani
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If I were capable of assisting someone, I would do it in a manner that would cause the person seeking assistance to work, so he assists himself.
Ameen Rihani
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The duties I ask of myself are obligatory for absolutely every individual, everywhere. Moreover, just as I recognize these rights and duties of others, I would like the others to recognize them form me as well.
Ameen Rihani
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If I had in me something that inspires people towards the good and raises them one step on the ladder of mental and spiritual progress, I want to show it by example, indication, and deduction, not by preaching, threatening, and conspiring.
Ameen Rihani
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Our Phoenician ancestors never left anything they undertook unfinished. Consider what they accomplished in their days, and the degree of culture they attained.
Ameen Rihani
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Like the seasons of the year, like history, truth always repeats itself.
Ameen Rihani
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What is life without its angles of difficulty and defeat, and its tip of triumph and power?
Ameen Rihani
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We can not understand each other, if our sympathies are always safely tucked away we can not understand each other, if our approaches are always academic or conventional we can not understand each other, if we crawl back into our shells every time we see a worm across our path.
Ameen Rihani