Mr. Rihani is a man of ardent poetic temperament, a clever poet, and a man of unworldly ideals.

The future life is where we will go on helping to bring the universe to perfection, which is God's grand ultimate aim. [The purpose of life] is to help God run the universe. Everyone in that better land will be busy all the time, and the environment will be perfect all the time for doing the work which God assigns to all.

The sequoias belong to the silences of the milleniums. Many of them have seen a hundred human generations rise, give off their little clamors and perish. They seem indeed to be forms of immortality standing here amoing the transitory shapes of time.

The thing that is incredible is life itself. Why should we be here in this sun-illuminated universe? Why should there be green earth under our feet?

Sorrows come to stretch out places in the heart for joy.

The crest and crowning of all good, life's final star, is Brotherhood.

We are all blind until we see That in the human plan Nothing is worth the making If it does not make the man. Why build these cities glorious If man unbuilded goes? We build the world in vain Unless the builders also grow.