Ameen Rihani Quotes

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.

I state the threefold purpose of my travels in Arabia: to see the country, to write about it and to be of some service to its people and their cause - that is what brought me from beyond the seas, from America.

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.

Training the will in trivial and grave matters increases its strength and flexibility, and enables man to constantly strive and persevere.

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.

I am the East. I have philosophies, I have religions, who would exchange them for airplanes?

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.

... 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.

What is life without its angles of difficulty and defeat, and its tip of triumph and power?

Freedom of the Spirit is the cornerstone of all freedom.

My American walking shoes are new, and my Oriental eyes are old.

Foreign culture is as necessary to the spirit of a nation as is foreign commerce to its industries.

To us all, life is a gift, liberty is a right, and the pursuit of happiness is the object supreme. But our conduct in the pursuit differs in accordance with the measure of justice we uphold. A common measure is only possible when we begin to understand and learn to appreciate each other's point of view and point of direction.

Virtue, once bragged about, once you pride yourself upon it, ceases to be such.

Genius everywhere is one. In the Orient and in the Occident the deep thinkers are kin, the poets are cousins, the pioneers of the spirit are the messengers of peace and good will to the world. Their works are the open highways between nations, and they themselves are the ever living guardians and guides.

At this moment, my soul is in Lebanon, my heart in Paris, and my body in New York.

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.

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.

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.

Had courage, wisdom, and reason always prevailed in people, there would not have been oppressions and oppressors.

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

I proceeded in my national mission, seeking to pave the way for an understanding between His Majesty and the other ruling princes of Arabia.

In the Lakes of Light, Love and Will, I would baptize all mankind.

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.

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.

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.

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

True up-bringing is restricted to two types of welfare; the welfare of the body and that of the mind.

When we go deep enough or high enough, we meet. It is only on the surface that we differ and sometimes clash. True, we do not always find our way to the depth or the height, or we do not take the trouble to do so.

I renounce falsehood, whatsoever be the guise it assumes, and I embrace truth, wheresoever I find it.

We have to dissolve all the denominations in order to form from them the greater denomination of the homeland.

Our Phoenician ancestors never left anything they undertook unfinished. Consider what they accomplished in their days, and the degree of culture they attained.

I want to accept all the difficulties that face me in life with perseverance and patience.

The will is the spirit of perseverance, and perseverance holds clear success.

Like matter itself, an ideal is mutable, but indestructible. It does not die; it only undergoes a change.

Like the seasons of the year, like history, truth always repeats itself.

The religious fanatic drew a small circle and left me, the infidel, outside it. However, I, with the help of love, won over him - I drew a large circle and included him.

Breathless and unharmed, we emerge from the mazes of metaphysics and psychology where man and the soul are playing hide-and-seek.

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.

Yes, I am calling for an intellectual revolution that sweeps away the corruption, absurdity and error, which prevail in morals, customs, traditions, and doctrines.

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.

You teacher, teach your pupils freedom in thought and deed, honesty in thought and deed, and tolerance in thought and deed.

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.

... And if Europe gives Arabia a railway, Arabia gives Europe an idea - which I think balances the account.

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.

The footsteps of a pioneer become ultimately the highway of a nation.

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.

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.