Cover by Randa Baini**
There are many things I did not like, yet I saw many people admire them and defend them
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Instead of carrying your cross and walking, sit down and let your enemies carry it
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Only the one who has no generosity is disgusted by giving
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Lebanon will not be saved except by the hands of its honourable sons, so let us work sincerely to save it. It is our homeland, and we have no other homeland in the East. It is what we look forward to, and it is what we dream of, and for it we sing, write, and cry
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I will not celebrate your birthday, O Lord, while the wind of sorrow, the hand of death and alienation paralyse my people
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Between delusion and reality, the conjunction “and” stretches
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Haven't you noticed yet that some religious men love fame more than dancers and fashion models?
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All the poets I have read, I have studied under, except for the showing off "masters" among them
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A people who destroys their country for the sake of the president's survival... has no head
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Lebanon will not change unless its sectarian system of government changes and its sectarian cantons disappear.
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If your hand were not an oasis, generosity would not have let its camels kneel and dismounted.
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If you want to judge the authority in any country, watch the traffic policeman, for he is the face that the authorities cannot hide.
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I'm sure the inventors of Viagra were of Arab origin, otherwise they wouldn't have thought of it.
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Lebanon, as we see it, is divided along sectarian lines in a disgusting way. As soon as you mention the name of a region in it, you describe it as sectarian. Therefore, we find that most of our politicians do not work for the benefit of Lebanon as a whole, but rather for the benefit of their narrow regions, which give them the power to control those regions.
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When children make mistakes, we laugh with them, and when adults make mistakes, we laugh at them.
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What a wretched country is when its citizens climb and slide over its laws. What a wretched citizen is when he plays around with the law. What a wretched ruler is when he enacts the law and wiped his ass with its papers.
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I am amazed at people who pick up the dollar with their tongues but their hands are empty.
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Be bright as the sun, lest the fingers of an ignorant man extinguish you.
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He whose hand is paralysed from giving will never tread the threshold of glory.
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Humility and love are essential wings for an artist to fly and soar.
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There is a fatal disease in our Arab homeland that girls suffer from, which paralyses their abilities and limits their creativity. They must be saved from it, and this will only be done by granting them freedom and providing them with a pioneering cultural, social, scientific and sexual sap that gives them self-confidence that transforms them from an ignorant woman into an intelligent woman, from a mother-servant to a mother-servant, and from a fearful wife to a loyal, mature and understanding wife.
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Attacking others is not as easy as some people think, because it dissects them as they dissect, and places them, before the eyes of truth, on the table of strict comparison: Who is better, them or those who criticize them?
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The difference between a critic and a reader is that the critic plays with us, while we play with the reader.
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We must educate the Arab girl sexually, and give her some freedom, so that she can choose the person who makes her happy and whom she can make happy, and we must abandon the role of guardian over her, because no one at all knows what is in her secrets, especially if the issue is related to her intimate sexual matters.
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You will never become great, no matter what you do, unless you have the love and respect of others.
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You will never be defeated, as long as your weapon is love.
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O distant lover, my heartbeats disturb me every night, and my dream awaits you.
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I will love you until love grows tired of my love, and brings me into the joy of its master.
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Your innocence, as a man, you can gain from children.
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Writing alone eases the pain of my alienation, so why don't you try it?
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He who does not love others, does not feel their love for him.
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A nation whose rulers are greedy, whose writers are arrogant, and whose children are controlled, politicized, and sectarian will not survive.
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A pious prostitute is better than a deceitful clergyman, who exploits God for his own lusts, whims, policies, and love of dividing God’s children and sowing death in the streets, so that no one will have peace or sleep.
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Manipulating knowledge to please religious men is absolutely not permissible. It is God who has planted knowledge in us, and all we have to do is follow His guidance that He provides us through reason. Who knows, a day may come when people will write on the graves of some religious men: Here lie ignorant people, and they will write on the graves of scholars: Here lie the prophets of God.
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The second biggest issue shaking the Arab world after religion is the hymen, so the girl will continue to exercise her right to get rid of her bodily secretions with extreme secrecy, so that her affair is not exposed, and she is not arrested by the morality police, or slaughtered by the knife of a rebellious brother, as always happens.
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What is happening in the Arab world in terms of distortion and crushing of humanity, pushes all the peoples of the world to cling more to their humanity, more to their democracy, and more to protecting their citizens from black death.
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Woe, then woe to whoever thinks of saving his Arab nation from the clutches of ignorance and poverty. The United Nations is against him, the Arab League is against him, the Arab media is against him, and the dogs of the Arab rulers are against him. Is there a more accursed disgrace than this?!
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Comparing our sexual instinct to that of animals has something of a bias towards animals, since, in complete contrast to us, they do not have intercourse with their young children, but rather destroy anyone who comes near them, in order to preserve the purity of their lineage.
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Our children... our livers walking on the earth, this is what the poet said, and this is how we should look at them, so for God's sake treat them well, and be a good school for them, so that justice prevails and peace spreads in a world where everything in it swims against the current.
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The only good thing about terrorism is that it has begun to unite the rulers and their opponents in the countries it invades, and this is a major democratic scourge.
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If I write, no one reads, and if I read, no one hears. Illiteracy is rampant among my people, and sectarianism pisses on their heads.
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The presidency in the West is a job. When presidents get tired of it, they resign. As for the presidency in the East, it is an inheritance. When presidents get tired of it, they die.
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No, Islam will not become a wall to hide behind. The true Muslims, wherever they are, have come to realize that their Islam came as nothing but mercy to the worlds.
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I am an Arab, therefore I am persecuted. Whether I am a friend or an enemy, loyalist or oppositionist, educated or illiterate, my accusation is ready, the first of which is dealing with the enemy, and the last of which is conspiring against the regime.
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The blessing of procreation and education must be denied to anyone who does not respect and sanctify childhood, and God must not grant it except to those who were created for it, provided that they are at His level.
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The opportunist, if you shake hands with him, will use your hand as a bridge to cross to others.
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If you want to become an important man in your society, curse people. People, in this bad age, do not respect anyone except cursers. Civility has disappeared, self-dignity has committed suicide, and social and human values have declared their bankruptcy. So curse!
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The only thing that comforts me is that I wrote, and the only thing that annoys them is that I wrote, so what is the solution? I don’t know?!
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The most severe type of terrorism is the terrorism of thought, which is practiced by the ruler and the religious man in our wretched Arab East without the slightest mercy.
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Grant me, O God, a faithful friend, so that I may fertilize my tears with his tears.
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Arrogance is a deadly disease that only kills those with small minds.
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The man who turns on his friends with the speed of a destructive projectile, beware of the spray of his saliva.
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Three people whom God does not love: the envious, the arrogant, and the gossiper. The first kills others, the second licks their blood, and the third destroys his society.
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A mother who does not shake the baby bed with her hand will shake the body of the world with her carelessness.
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If religions do not cross-pollinate and intermarry, humanity will remain like a monkey that enjoys licking its own blood.
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Only those who are ignorant of their own beliefs fear the beliefs of others.
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Why do Jews, Christians and Muslims fight each other, if they are truly the children of God?
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The clergyman, whatever his sect is, should be a saint, or he must look for another job to earn his living.
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Do not blame the wind for making too much noise, but rather thank it for the blessing of its presence.
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A ruler who clings to his throne to the point of madness has no good deeds.
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Divorce is a crime committed by the parents, and the law does not punish them for it.
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Freedom of expression cannot be fragmented. It can either shine like the sun, or be swallowed up by obscurity and confiscation.
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The writer who begs people to publish his literature, people will publish his literature on the rooftops.
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We no longer know who is laughing at whom, is it God laughing at us, or are we laughing at God?
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We in our Arab countries are dead and breathing!
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Blessed is he who transcends the past and embraces the future.
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If violence only brings death, constructive dialogue is the best way to life.
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It is strange how our leaders in the Arab world want to rule us, even by force.
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The most cursed of friends is he who uses your friendship as a dagger to stab his enemies.
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The writer who is afraid of words will be dragged out of his ears by words.
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A nation that ignores the gifts of its children is a slave
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Reason always beats the gun, provided it does not surrender.
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The most beautiful phrase I heard from my mother is: My son, carry your joy and walk.
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A miser is a man who dies twice, so that his heirs may live after him.
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Most of those who sit at the tables of honour are without honour.
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My eyelashes flutter, and my heart beats faster every time I call on you.
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I have covered all the distances that separate me from you, and all that remains is the step of marriage.
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Honesty with yourself is the key to happiness.
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A man with one eye will not see better than a man with two healthy eyes, and a man with one foot will not walk at all, and will stumble after every rise until the world is tired of him.
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You will remain the water and the air, and I will remain the desert thirsty for the outpouring of your tenderness.
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The Arab peoples only gather for quarrels, killing, and sowing discord, as if they do not deserve a decent life like the rest of the peoples of the earth.
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There is a sea of shame between those who work and those who chatter.
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My love melody for you, words that my heart beats with, then grows and blossoms into poems, that no one will enjoy except you.
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Who else but us would take his sick, fanatical Arab mentality with him wherever he went, distorting the country that hosts him to the point that he curses it the moment he arrives there?
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The universe has grown tired of us, and we are not yet tired of our ignorance, our ignorant behaviour, and the hissing of our spiteful tongues. And yet we say: We are the best of God’s creation.
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The Arab people are a dead people, even if they give birth.
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Those who rule the Arab world are not its rulers, but its religious men. They are the real rulers, and everything else is just a mirage upon a mirage.
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Your eyes are my refuge in the desert of this world, let their palm trees shade me.
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I have been honest all my life, and I have only lied when I loved.
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God has bestowed many blessings upon me, but all of them together do not equal the blessing of your love for me.
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There is something wrong with our mental, social and religious makeup. While we find that the Western media does not shed light on its religious men unless they commit a sin or violate someone’s honour, we find that the Arab media follows its religious men like a blind man, whether they make mistakes or not, whether they issue fatwas or not. They are the Qibla, and to them we look, and from them come blessings. For this, and for this only, we did not become human beings like the rest of the human beings!
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If it weren't for you, my love, the boredom of alienation would nest in every heartbeat I experience.
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The writer who drops the reader into the depths of his language, literature drops him from his mind.
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Your spontaneity in writing may illuminate the paths to success for you, and add a lustre to your literature that will attract the reader more and more.
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I have never felt so low as when I allowed myself to belittle others.
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I do not know why God bestows children on people who do not deserve them, and who even commit the most heinous crimes against them, while He leaves many warm homes without their beloved noise, their honeyed coquetry, and their bright smiles, and deprives millions of righteous fathers and mothers of the blessing of raising them, as education should be, or as the most precious of children deserve. Attention, encouragement, tenderness, love...and protection.
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The lowest of people are those who eat your food and gossip about you.
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Yes. In the twenty-first century, international law stands helpless in the face of numerous crimes committed against children, and we still glorify the child protection organizations, and children’s rights!
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If backward societies still arrange the marriage of minors’ girls to elderly men, for the sole purpose of making money, we find, unfortunately, that some American clerics arrange such marriages, and even practice them themselves, even through rape.
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Whenever I close my eyes and sink into the trance of my prayer, I chant your name.
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The opposition of others to you is a primary reason for the continuity of your giving.
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Our expatriate literature is an oasis where caravans coming from the East rest.
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Help me, O Lord, to be like You, so that I may give people all that I have.
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When, oh when, will we apprehend many of our religious men who practice religious debauchery without the slightest shame, so that civil law, before divine law, may take its course against them, so that we may enjoy a peaceful social life undisturbed by an ignorant fatwa, and untroubled by the preaching of a fool?
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Rumours in the Arab world are of two types: a sexual rumour that can burn down a village, and a sectarian rumour that can destroy a nation.
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God created all people in His image and likeness, except for the stingy.
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For goodness to prevail in our Arab world, all its people must be subject to strict civil laws that will eliminate anyone who tries to harm their society.
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Your literary greatness does not come from what people write about you, but from what you write for people.
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All the things you lose can be recovered over time, except for your good reputation.
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Our Arab nation is living in a state of vile and painful religious turmoil, which has returned it to the age of ignorance, in the age of computers, the internet, and the work to colonize Mars.
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Instead of killing your despicable leaders and staining your pure hands with their filthy blood, put them on the first ship sailing away, and the sea will take care of them.
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If a headache strikes your head, do not resort to painkillers, but to your mother's embrace.
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Let us unite through marriage and kinship. Let us become one family, instead of fighting, warring, and distancing ourselves from each other. We are tired of death, and it is time for us to live.
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The word that the reader does not understand, he condemns to death.
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The poet's tribe, in our time, is a small global village; to enter it, he must search for a website where he can publish the poems that insomnia has bestowed upon him, which may be read and shared, or the electronic mouse may skip over them and bypass them, only for them to then be relegated to the site's archive, awaiting researchers.
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When they start fighting you, you have arrived.
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My reproach is not for the chatterbox, but for those who listen to him.
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Many are those who applaud and cheer for those who steal the works of others, without bothering to search for their true owners, which may harm them more than the thieves who steal the geniuses of others and attribute them, for a time, to their own failed names.
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I am tired of a garrulous poet who doesn't know how to stop whining and begging.
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If you abandon your humility, you abandon your humanity, so be careful.
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My only advice to expatriate writers and poets: Publish your works before they are consumed by fire.
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False rumors travel faster than sound... and death!
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An artist who talks more than he sings on stage is a failure.
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My Arab nation... much talk, little action.
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Our existence, since existence began, is a sin, so how can we ask for forgiveness, O God?
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Envy... a germ that lives in the hearts of some people, but dies in my heart.
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Befriend all people without exception, for the good among them will make you happy, and the bad among them will guide you.
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Poetry... musical words played by the fingers of the Creator on the strings of a creative poet's throat.
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I was astonished by a man who entered my house, so I fed him my food and gave him my water, and when his stomach was heavy with satiety, he stuck out his tongue and began to stab me with it until death.
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Generosity is when your right hand becomes a field and your left hand becomes ears of grain.
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The system that stifles your voice, hasten to stifle its breath.
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Had you not existed, I would never have believed that God created humankind male and female.
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What a wretched time we live in, when monkeys become men, pipes become mothers, and thieves become businessmen!
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Only those afflicted with the disease of arrogance sit upon the throne of delusion.
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Literature is dignity, poetry is dignity, and art is dignity... So why, then, do most writers, poets, and artists abandon their dignity?!
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Writers and poets who beg for attention at cultural seminars burden the programs, mar the seminars, bore the audience to death, and ultimately harm themselves.
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Democracy is an earthly paradise that Arabs should not be deprived of.
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The pen that honours is honoured, and the pen that insults is insulted.
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Become a giant, O poet, before the feet of idle chatter trample you.
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How true is the saying that religion is politics!
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Poetry is the poet, in language and music.
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Our art today is like the beating of drums; it moves feet and deafens ears.
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I have dedicated my wealth to my craft, and I have enlisted my craft in the service of humanity. Help me, O Lord, to possess the truth.
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How strange are the astronomers! They discover planets, yet their own is lost!
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Our foolish rulers have marred the beauty of our homeland with their actions, and beautified the ugliness of exile!
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True faith is knowing God without offending your neighbour.
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Democracy is the most effective means for religions and ethnicities to coexist.
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Don't say: Look for the woman, but rather look for the family and the community.
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If speech is worth a Lebanese lira, then silence is worth an American dollar.
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Hang the gallows at the scene of the crime, and the prisons will become museums.
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The critic who wastes his time scrutinizing linguistic rules, which were and still are subject to repeal and development, becomes the object of doubt for his readers and all those he criticizes.
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Educating people is better than feeding them.
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Before you try to please anyone while you write, please yourself. Writing that isn't accompanied by inner peace remains sterile and trivial.
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Art is a vast space where only the greatest stars shine.
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Literary fame is not achieved through plagiarism. It is more honourable for you to publish your photos in the "Get to Know You" section than to publish them under words that are not your own. History knows how to sift through people, if the law doesn't already, since plagiarism is prohibited in all countries of the world.
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The real tragedy is not in being falsely accused, but in abandoning your belief in your own work.
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Riding an airplane is far more important than inventing one.
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The new centre of Arab culture is the internet, but it needs creativity. Otherwise, we will remain stagnant, regurgitating the works of our predecessors, growing weary of our own writing, causing the reader to yawn and, after a few moments, snore.
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If you don't believe in the existence of demons, I advise you to visit our Arab homelands and witness first-hand the traces of their cursed fingerprints. A nation that has not yet considered the well-being of its people is the most miserable nation ever brought forth for mankind.
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Even if a million roosters crowed and a million hens clucked, the truth would remain the truth until the Day of Judgment.
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There is no difference between Arabic, English, French, Russian, or Chinese literature except in terms of geographical location, the interaction of the environment, and the flexibility of the language in which it was written.
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Religious fundamentalism that calls its followers to live in a bygone era will be rejected by the present.
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Readers of poetry only declined when poets declined.
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The most difficult profession of all is the profession of art, yet many make a living from it!
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Arabic literature—whether we like it or not—is world literature, because it is an essential part of an integrated world that cannot be confined, even if we wanted to, to a specific place on earth, especially since the process of transmission has moved from the back of a donkey to the back of a jet plane and the internet, making the universe a plaything in the hands of humankind.
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Our community in Australia will remain indebted to its diaspora press for its progress until Judgment Day.
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Work is better than prayer, for it feeds and shelters children.
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The believer is not the one who spends his hours praying, but the one who dedicates those hours to serving his fellow human being.
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A barren paper is one that has never been touched by a pen.
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A parasite is a weed that grows without soil.
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To become master of yourself, reduce your interaction with people. The most beautiful thing about Lebanon is that it is my homeland.
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All the engineers of the universe would bow in awe before the halls, columns, statues, and paintings that nature has sculpted in the Jeita Grotto.
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The beggar is not the one who solicits in the streets, but the one who refrains from giving.
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The only image that caught my eye the day I visited Iraq was of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
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If you visit Egypt, make sure your heart hasn't renewed its stay.
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Freedom is about taste, understanding, interaction, awareness, and humanity. Whoever abuses their freedom beyond its bounds is like someone drunk and driving a car, or like someone guiding a blind person with their eyes closed. In both cases, their actions will have disastrous, even tragic, consequences.
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For women, as for men, there is one private part, sanctified by God Almighty when He included them in the act of creation. Therefore, we must respect it and not treat it with contempt, otherwise we strike at the very core of our being, the place of creation within us, and this is an unforgivable crime.
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Sexual repression among women in conservative countries may ignite within them the fires of madness and promiscuity when they move to more liberal countries.
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I fear that one day it will be said that some of our poets were struck by mad cow disease.
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My advice to visitors of Cairo: Don't pay a single penny to attend musical concerts... the weddings at 10:30 will suffice.
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Death is death, whatever the cause.
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When the pen learns, it gives; and when it is accustomed to writing, its hesitation and slowness diminish.
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The motherhood of a spider baffles me. She knows that the children she carries on her back will devour her when they grow up, yet she nurtures them tenderly.
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To secure your future and the future of your children, remove your necktie immediately.
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These days, your daughter earns her bread by the sweat of her brow, while your son earns his by the sweat of your brow.
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If you claim to be descended from an aristocratic family, know that someone will mutter quietly: "And this is just another fool who doesn't even know who his father is."
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To become one of the great thinkers, declare that you will abolish all the languages of the world.
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If they speak ill of you, do not grieve; but if they praise you openly, weep, for you will lose all your friends.
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Life is an oasis where hatred has no place, a window that, once opened, must be closed again.
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The past is merely memories that do not wound, while the present is a terrifying reality.
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Love and giving are two sides of the same coin: God.
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Every writer has a significant date of birth.
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I used to consider myself excessive in my love for you, but then I discovered that my love is not even worth a drop of your love for me.
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I knew a woman who, the moment her husband was elected president of a five-person literary group, completely changed and refused to be called anything other than "the president's wife."
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Civilized nations protect beauty, while we destroy it.
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Before eradicating administrative corruption, we must eradicate political corruption, the root cause of all corruption.
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The Japanese people are remarkable; they conquered the world technologically after being militarily defeated.
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A mother is the only woman who can make you great.
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A king is truly king if he has no heir. ** Before you encounter extra-terrestrial beings, burn your human history.
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Marriage, when it becomes a pathological condition, may destroy the children.
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Instead of us being kind to animals, animals are now being kind to us.
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For a ruler to succeed in his mission, he must abandon all his relatives.
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A just king is one who does not know from which woman he was born.
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If sex is a sin, then the first to lead us into it was God through wet dream or nocturnal emission.
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I have never longed for anything as much as I long for my mother's embrace.
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If God were to grant me fatherhood, I would emulate my father.
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Behind every madman is a lover.
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I have never drunk alcohol, yet I am intoxicated with God.
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He who accuses others of disbelief is an infidel, for he denies God's fatherhood of humankind.
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You hate me, therefore you love me, for hate is the highest form of love.
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Love is a beautiful annoyance.
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Philosophy is not to philosophize.
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Death is pleasure, victory, and pride; otherwise, no one would ever join the army.
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My last wish before I die is that it not be said that I died.
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If a book is called a new-born, then how many children I have!
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My only life partner is the word; from it I have given birth to dozens of books.
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Despair is the disease of our time; to be cured, the afflicted commit suicide.
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Sex is the permanent prison of our Arab minds.
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The effeminate man and the masculine woman are a shameful silence for both masculinity and femininity.
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When the Arab woman is liberated from the bondage of men, the journey of convergence with advanced nations will begin.
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All the words of praise I have heard are not worth a whisper of "I love you."
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Poets breathe with one lung; if one suffers, they all suffer.
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Enlightened Muslims wept more for the booby-trapped, demolished, and shattered Buddha statue than the Buddhists themselves, lamenting it in poems and articles. But weeping over ruins will not rebuild the statue.
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Anyone who looks rationally at the accelerating events in Egypt and the growing Salafist tide will realize that the Sphinx's days are numbered on this earth, and that it will inevitably join its Afghan counterpart, Buddha, while the world will merely condemn it.
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Our Arab shoes are deadly weapons. I hope the United Nations doesn't prevent us from using them, lest we become, as we always have, unarmed.
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We, unfortunately, no matter how far we travel, remain children of customs and traditions. We follow them like fools, we implement them to the letter like parrots, we respect them as we respect saints and prophets. And woe, woe again, to anyone who deviates from them or tampers with them, for their fate is inevitably earthly hell, as everyone turns against them, for no other reason than that they have rebelled against the customs and traditions of their ancestors.
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We have no right to accuse the West of racism, for we know it better than anyone. We move freely within its embrace, enjoy its freedoms, and consume more of its bounty than its native inhabitants. The failure is our failure, the racism is our racism, the lies are our lies, and the war is our war... so stop your chatter.
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For our literature to become truly good, we must examine ourselves and hold ourselves accountable for every poor deed we commit, which may unknowingly tarnish the honour of the written word. Otherwise, may God have mercy on us and grant us paradise.
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All official bodies in our occupied countries, burdened by the narcissism of their rulers and the brutality of their intelligence services, care only about fighting us. Tell me, have you ever received a thank-you note from a single government official for a brilliant, humane article you penned? Of course not. They are accustomed to your praise and recognition, so how can you expect them to relinquish their numerous privileges to a writer who possesses nothing but a pen, a notebook, and a word that could sweep away the very ground beneath their feet?
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The Arab nation alone knew how to harness Viagra to its desires. It permitted its use because it is beneficial (for men), but if it were beneficial (for women), it would have forbidden it.
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Woe to us if we say the earth is round, for we will be accused of heresy. Woe to us if we demand that women be allowed to drive, for we will be executed immediately. This is our law, one million percent patriarchal, and whoever protests will be beheaded.
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Resistance, resistance is what defines its goals with utmost care, for it is responsible before its revolutionary honor for the infrastructure and the people of the country it works to liberate, not to destroy.
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As an Arab, I have no right to know more than one ruler. God sent him to me, and God will take him from me. As for me, all I can do is pray for his long life, his many offspring, and applaud him continuously whether he speaks, coughs, or snores.
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I am not an infidel; rather, the infidel is the one who kidnaps people, beheads them, and takes lives in the name of God Almighty, while God is innocent of him.
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Lebanese immigrants provided Lebanon, during its long and painful war, with humanitarian services that only an ingrate would deny. It is enough that they clung to their national unity so that their homeland would not collapse.
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They said: A time will come when animals will be better than humans, and here we are living in that time.
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The friendship of some people is a plague.
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How many people befriend you only to enslave you.
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The worst of people is he who showers you with praise to steal your attention.
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The most cunning of people is he who praises you in order to criticize others.
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God created woman to complement man, and created man to cherish her.
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The greatest of people is he who transforms his own dust into gold.
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A poet who fears criticism is not a poet, especially if the criticism is constructive and supports our diaspora literary movement.
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A woman in love doesn't expect a lengthy love speech from the man she loves; she longs to hear a single word: "I love you."
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If your friend is sweet, don't dissolve him with excessive demands.
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How insignificant is the day that passes while I sleep.
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Whoever uses the media as a means to elevate their status will be pelted with nails by the readers.
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The life of the Arab writer, since the dawn of history, has been in danger. He either leaves, is imprisoned, or is killed, yet he still creates.
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If I were given the choice between the past and the present, I would choose the past, for it brings back my childhood.
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I write in the Arab world; therefore, I am dead, but without a shroud.
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Your anger may destroy you before it destroys your enemies.
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A child who has not suckled his mother's milk will not be affectionate towards her.
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The peoples of the world are looking towards Mars, while my people are regressing towards ignorance.
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Everything in my life has been beautiful, except marriage.
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I am amazed by the person who sought refuge in Australia weeping, and when she made him laugh, he made her cry.
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If the media is not in safe hands, the reader should boycott it.
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Wadih El Safi's voice is heavenly; God sent him to us so we could hear how the angels sing.
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I am amazed by a person who dreams of wealth while sitting cross-legged.
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A person who kills their neighbour in the name of religion has no religion.
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How many massacres have been committed in Your name, O God, and You remain silent!
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To reach Paradise, they turned the earth into hell.
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Exile has no right to define homeland, nor does darkness have the right to be associated with light. Exile and darkness are two names for the same pain.
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If we rid ourselves of the religious figures, we will end our ignorance as Arabs.
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In the West, the president is an employee; in the East, the president is a god... and that is why we have lost faith in our homeland.
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Poverty with dignity is wealth, and wealth with humiliation is poverty.
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The most failed of merchants is the drug dealer, for he is the only one who kills his customers.
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If Christ had not been gentle and humble of heart, I would not have followed him.
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A religion that does not call for love is a party, not a religion.
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He who betrays the homeland that sheltered him is like one who betrays the womb that carried him as a fetus.
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I lived two-thirds of my life in exile, and the first third still haunts me with longing and yearning for my motherland.
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Always remember that you only pass through this world once, so fill it with good deeds.
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My mother told me: If half of you falls to the ground, don't pick it up, so that you only bow down to your Lord.
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When my father would scold me, he would kiss me first, so that I wouldn't lose his love in that moment of reprimand.
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The most beautiful thing about my very, very large family is that it is one house.
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Many moments in my life have wounded my heart, yet I have accepted them.
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The day I recited my poem at the Mirbid Poetry Festival in Iraq in 1987, I felt that I was born a poet.
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A despicable and vile person is one you open your arms to, only to have them stab you in the back.
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I searched for someone who loved me more, and found no one but my mother.
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He told me: "All I own in my exile is a large collection of photos I took on many occasions." I replied: "The photos have humiliated you, my friend."
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The cost of an average wedding is forty thousand dollars, while the cost of a divorce is hundreds of thousands, yet divorce is rampant.
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A truly enslaved person is one born without intellect or free will.
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If someone loves you for your money, throw them in the trash.
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If God created you in His image and likeness, why deny His existence?
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All the peoples of the earth have free will, except the Arab people.
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Don't even bother walking on a path that doesn't lead you to your goal.
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It is truly painful to live together in exile and slaughter each other in our homeland.
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The peoples of the earth are weary of our disputes, yet we still speak of brotherhood and coexistence.
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If killing, slaughter, and enslavement are our path to paradise, then what is the purpose of hell?
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I heard a man say: Australia is an infidel country. And I heard his wife reply, laughing: If this is what infidelity is... then welcome to it!
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He who denies the rights of others has no rights of his own.
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The most important thing God has given us is life, so why do we rush headlong towards death like fools?
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All the wars throughout history have humiliated their perpetrators, so why don't we learn from them?
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I have given you the right to worship whomever you wish, so why do you deprive me of that right? Doubt is a deadly demon; it torments you while you're still alive.
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You can worship a gun, as long as you don't shoot me.
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The number of people who have written about me far exceeds the words of gratitude I can express. How can I possibly thank them all?
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Construction corruption is disfiguring the beauty of Lebanese nature to such an extent that we now sing: "Lebanon, you piece of concrete."
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I am truly afraid because the one who threatens my life speaks in the name of God, claims to know God's secrets, when God reveals His message, and to whom. By God, I swear, we are living in an age of false prophecy!
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I sincerely hope that our media outlets will not remain silent, but will instead deliver the definitive news, the kind that cannot be altered or changed. If we rejoice at news, we have the right for our joy to be lasting, not to vanish and be blown away by the wind, as has always happened.
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My failures in love have taught me not to see women as lovers, but as friends.
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The lust for power is far stronger than sexual desire.
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Facebook's fatal flaw is that it allowed insults and gossips to enter, thus stripping it of its character as a place of friendship.
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Because of our foolishness as Arabs, the Ottomans sold us titles even more foolish than ourselves.
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A person's life is like a hair that turns Gray and falls out.
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Gossips multiply like rats; rats carry the plague, and gossips spread it in our societies.
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Give me a living nation, and take the homeland as paradise.
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I heard someone curse the camera because the photograph has humiliated many with small minds.
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Steal my house, but don't steal my idea. Furniture can be replaced, but an idea cannot.
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Exile isn't about being far from one's homeland, but about one's homeland forgetting its children.
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Money is accumulated, but it doesn't accumulate.
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The cemeteries of expatriates are filled with the remains of loved ones. If you stood at their graves, you would hear them say: We wished to be buried in our homeland.
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I am Druze by origin, Christian by faith, my ancestors from the Chouf region, my parents from Mejdlaya, and my family is Baini. How can sectarianism enter my heart?
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If the eye of love is blind, the eye of hatred never sleeps.
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The most beautiful thing about a woman is her motherhood.
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A woman who neglects her femininity loses one of the most important reasons for her existence.
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All jewels bow before the pearl of your captivating smile.
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He who remains silent about corruption is corrupt.
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He who abandons his humanity is like one who abandons God, for God and humanity are two words with the same meaning.
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Humanity is one family: God is its father and humanity is its mother.
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Selfishness is a kind of incurable madness.
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Many are those who turn the first-person pronoun "I" into a deadly bullet.
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The first-person pronoun "I" is more lethal to a person than germs.
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Strange is the case of the drug dealer; he claims intelligence and shrewdness, yet practices a trade that leads his customers to the grave and hangs them from the gallows.
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A woman who neglects her beauty may drive her husband into the arms of infidelity.
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An envious person is someone who imitates your every successful Endeavor.
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When Westerners overcame the barrier of the hymen, girls and boys became equal.
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O Lord, do not make me a source of anxiety for anyone, so that no one suffers because of me.
**
Professor Rifaat Obeid said, in front of a group of friends at Dr. Bahia Abou Hamad's salon during the launch of the song "Ya Beirut" (Oh Beirut): "Charbel Baini deserves ten doctoral degrees," just as Dr. Samar Al-Attar said to Dr. Nawal El Saadawi years ago. However, despite their affection for me—Obeid and Al-Attar—they seem to have forgotten that the title "Doctor" is the most distorted and debased due to the many who falsely claim it. Therefore, I will simply use my name: Charbel Baini.
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A parasitic human being is an insect that has managed to overcome all types of pesticides.
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It is true that sexual freedom in the West has eliminated Honour killings, but it has also destroyed something sacred: family ties.
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If a poor man steals a loaf of bread to eat, he's imprisoned. But if a leader steals the money of the poor, he gets the parliament.
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The most honourable wife is the one whose male colleague tried to harass her. She simply raised her finger at him and shouted, "If all men were like you, I would prefer to remain a virgin!"
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Many claim to be honest, refined, and well-mannered, yet their history is tainted by stealing government aid intended for the unemployed.
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He who denies a favour denies God, the first to whom He has bestowed favours.
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Do good without expecting anything in return, for every good deed will be returned.
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Incapacity only awaits those who neglect the elderly.
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Vice, obscenity, a girl's virginity... words the West has erased from its vocabulary and thrown into the trash.
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For Arabs, sex is a disgrace and a shame; for Westerners, it is a source of pride and dignity.
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It is true that Western women have relinquished their virginity, but they have become increasingly devoted to the men they love.
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No sooner had I forgiven him for his offense than he said, "You and I could fight all the writers and poets." I replied, "Before you start with them, here I am before you."
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A deceitful person is like a chameleon; if you discover one of their colours, they'll appear in a new one.
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Entering the paradise of love may only be possible through the gate of pain.
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The highest degree of joy is when we cry.
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To detect a liar, ask them to repeat what they said.
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Give a thumbs up to anyone who discusses things with you respectfully, even if they disagree with you.
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The word "brother" is always on our lips. When we are in pain, we cry out, "Brother!" and when we are happy, we shout, "Brother!"
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God blessed me with five brothers, but deprived me of His most beautiful creation: a sister.
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There are two literary situations in which criticism is absolutely forbidden: the introduction to a book and its signing ceremony.
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A just ruler, if his people revolt, yields to their demands without fear. A thieving ruler, however, sends his henchmen to drive the rebellious people away from his palace.
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Do not grieve for a friend who turned his back on you and left when you were most loyal to him, for in time he will weep with pain, having lost someone he loved and respected wholeheartedly.
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