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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
Soul
Ever
Mean
Heart
Contentment
East
Ambition
West
Means

More quotes by Ameen Rihani

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Like the seasons of the year, like history, truth always repeats itself.
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Knowledge is one of our direst needs. But it is insufficient on its own. If knowledge was stripped from true up-bringing, it would increase man's strength, but not his morals.
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Freedom of the Spirit is the cornerstone of all freedom.
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My American walking shoes are new, and my Oriental eyes are old.
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I deposit in many banks including the bank of wisdom. The more I draw on my accounts, no matter how big the sum, the bigger my balance becomes
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Had courage, wisdom, and reason always prevailed in people, there would not have been oppressions and oppressors.
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You teacher, teach your pupils freedom in thought and deed, honesty in thought and deed, and tolerance in thought and deed.
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I give priority to up-bringing over education because the ultimate goal of up-bringing is morals, and we have a more urgent need for morals than for knowledge.
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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.
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The heart yields spontaneity the mind bends to understanding.
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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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An object is great in proportion to its power of resistance to time and the elements. That is why we think the pyramids are great. But see, the desert is greater than the pyramids, and the sea is greater than the desert, and the heavens are greater than the sea.
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True knowledge is power but in order to feel at home with it, we must be constitutionally qualified. And if we are not, it is likely to give the soul such a twist as to deform it forever.
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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Training the will in trivial and grave matters increases its strength and flexibility, and enables man to constantly strive and persevere.
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.
Ameen Rihani
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Fire and light compete today in the East. But there is a lot of green firewood in this fire, and there is a lot of smoke in that light.
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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I am for reformation by emigration. The emigration of the mind before the revolution of the state. The soul and mind must be free before one has a right to be a member of a free government.
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