Ameen Rihani Quotes

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.

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.

Freedom of the Spirit is the cornerstone of all freedom.

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.

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

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.

The heart yields spontaneity; the mind bends to understanding.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Truth breeds power, and truth never perishes.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.