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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
Mean
Heart
Contentment
East
Ambition
West
Means
Soul
Ever

More quotes by Ameen Rihani

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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.
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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At this moment, my soul is in Lebanon, my heart in Paris, and my body in New York.
Ameen Rihani
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Foreign culture is as necessary to the spirit of a nation as is foreign commerce to its industries.
Ameen Rihani
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My American walking shoes are new, and my Oriental eyes are old.
Ameen Rihani
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Light, Love, and Will - the one is as necessary as the other the one is dangerous without the others. Light, Love, and Will are the three eternal, vital sources of the higher, truer, purer cosmic life.
Ameen Rihani
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Mutual tolerance is the stepping stone to mutual respect. A hospitable mind is the key to a neighboring or an alien spirit, looked by dogma and guarded by tradition.
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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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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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
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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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Had courage, wisdom, and reason always prevailed in people, there would not have been oppressions and oppressors.
Ameen Rihani
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I am the East. I have philosophies, I have religions, who would exchange them for airplanes?
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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... However, there is another method, other than revolution, which is that of natural evolution, or rather the intellectual method with all its modes of education and up-bringing.
Ameen Rihani
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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.
Ameen Rihani
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I proceeded in my national mission, seeking to pave the way for an understanding between His Majesty and the other ruling princes of Arabia.
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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Like the seasons of the year, like history, truth always repeats itself.
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