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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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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
Smoke
East
Green
Fire
Light
Today
Firewood
Compete

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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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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Like the seasons of the year, like history, truth always repeats itself.
Ameen Rihani
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I renounce falsehood, whatsoever be the guise it assumes, and I embrace truth, wheresoever I find it.
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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What is life without its angles of difficulty and defeat, and its tip of triumph and power?
Ameen Rihani
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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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We must strive to form a comprehensive sublime nationalism whose first principal is national geographic unity and must strengthen this unity with deeds not with words.
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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The broader and higher aspects of life are international.... There is a goal towards which all nations gravitate, and there is a common ground upon which all nations meet.
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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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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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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Whether you were Moslem, Christian, Druze, or Israeli, remember, God protect thee, that religious fanaticism for political goals or political fanaticism for religious purposes is the worst kind of fanaticism.
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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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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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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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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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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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