people-from-lebanon

"The two processes, islamisation and arabisation, were now at work together, but, although intimately interconnected, were by no means identical. Nor did they halt at the same frontiers. Islamisation, essentially a spiritual force, progressed much further aheld and was able to sweep barriers which arabisation, involving material displacement, could not always overstep. Broadly speaking, every country which became permanently arabised became also permanently islamised. But the converse is not true. There arc countries, such as Persia. and Afghanistan, where, notwithstanding a thorough and lasting islamisation, the progress of arabisation remained so restricted as to he, for our purposes, negligible."

"Similarly, though not to the same extent, the two aspects of the process of arabisation, namely, the spread of the Arabic language and the infiltration of Arab stock, differed both in range and in reach. There are physical and economic limits to the capacity of a country to admit and absorb migrations from the outside, even when, as happened with those waves of Arab colonisation, the process is carried through by superior force. The spread of the language was not circumscribed by those limitations. While Arabic went on advancing until it had completely enthroned itself, the tide of racial penetration found itself danmned within narrower confines."

"Wealth is not necessarily accumulated at the expense of public interest and the needy."

"I get upset about what is taken as great literature and what is cute and exotic."

"I don't sit down to write something politically or to challenge stereotypes. Being who I am, almost everything I do will be political, almost everything I do will be a challenge to those stereotypes…"

"For years, I have been heralding the work of Rabih Alameddine, a Lebanese-American writer. His prose is gorgeous, his approach irreverent, and the ideas in his stories are sometimes comical or fantastical, but always deadly serious — very relevant to understanding the complex history behind multiple holy wars today. In Italy and Spain, his books are best sellers. He has full-page profiles in major newspapers, has garnered prizes, is a darling of literary festivals and has won acclaim from international writers. In the U.S., he’s hardly known. Why is there a geographic divide in literary appreciation?"

"One of the things that was obvious to me after I started getting upset about so many things was, I wasn’t upset at the world, I was upset at myself,” he said. “Somewhere along the line, 1996, all my friends died, and I decided that to be able to survive, I must put everything aside. And I did. That was the date, by the way, that I started writing my first book….All of a sudden, I’m a writer. I have a career, I have a life. I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t remembering. Jacob begins the book by getting upset at these young gay men for forgetting queer history, but it’s him, it’s me, that allowed people to forget, because I forgot."

"God tells us men fucking men is a terrible thing, but a father offering his two daughters, vestal virgins no less, to a horde of horny buggers is heroic. Now that's straight. … God destroys the faggots with fire and brimstone. He turns a disobedient wife into salt. But he asks us to idolize drunks who sleep with their daughters or offer them to a horny, unruly mob."

"If you sit with your memories, you might as well become a plant."

"I agree with him entirely; there is no such thing in history as Palestine, absolutely, but when Dr. Hitti speaks of history he means Arab history, he is a specialist in Arab history and he knows his business."

"The harmonization of Greek philosophy with Islam begun by al-Kindi, an Arab, was continued by aI-Farabi. a Turk, and completed in the East by ibn-Sina, a Persian."

"Your breath upon the wind shall surely lodge within some breast. Ask not whose breast it is. See only that the breath itself be pure."

"Of two men sharing with a calf the milk of that calf's mother one eyes the calf with the thought that his tender flesh would provide good meat for him and his friends to feast upon at his approaching birthday. The other thinks of the calf as his brother of the teat and is filled with affection for the young beast and his mother. I say to you, the latter is truly nourished by that calf's meat; while the first is poisoned thereby. Aye, many things are put in the belly that should be put in the heart."

"While the non-yearner grasps for more and yet more things to put away in his pocket or belly, the yearner walks his way without a pocket, and with a belly clean of any creature's blood and convulsions."

"If that be your guiding spirit in eating of the heart of the Earth, then little does it matter what you eat. But if that be, indeed, your guiding spirit, then should you have the wisdom and the love not to bereave the Earth of any of her children, especially those which have come to feel the pleasure of living and the pain of dying – those that have arrived at the segment of Duality. For they, too, have their road to wend, slowly and laboriously, towards Unity. And their road is longer than yours. Delay them in their march, and they shall delay you in your march."

"Love is the only freedom from attachment. When you love everything, you are attached to nothing."

"For the yearners know that the life of flesh is but the bridge to the fleshless Life. And the yearners know that the coarse and inadequate senses are but the peepholes into the world of the infinitely fine and adequate sense. And the yearners know that every flesh they tear they must inevitably repair, sooner or later, with their own flesh; and every bone they crush they must rebuild with their own bone; and every drop of blood they spill they must replenish with their own blood. For, that is the law of flesh."

"Whoever cannot find a temple in his heart, the same can never find his heart in any temple."

"Ask not of things to shed their veils. Unveil yourselves, and things will be unveiled."

"Love is the Law of God. You live that you may learn to love. You love that you may learn to live. No other lesson is required of Man."

"So think as if your every thought were to be etched in fire upon the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is."

"Logic is immaturity weaving its nets of gossamer wherewith it aims to catch the behemoth of knowledge. When Logic comes of age it strangles itself in its nets and then becomes transmuted into Faith, which is the deeper knowledge. Logic is a crutch for the cripple; but a burden for the swift of foot; and a greater burden still for the winged."

"How much more infinite a sea is Man? Be not so childish as to measure him from head to foot and think that you have found his borders."

"Often you shall think your road impassable, sombre and companionless. Have will and plod along; and round each curve you shall find a new companion."

"To feed on Death is to become food for Death. To live by others' pain is to become a prey for pain. So has decreed the Omniwill. Know that and choose your course, Micayon."

"The more elaborate his labyrinths, the further from the Sun his face."

"Each Christian and Muslim who acts aggressively, will be contradicting their religious teachings."

"Respect the beliefs of other people, so your faith remains strong."

"I shall sacrifice myself that Lebanon may live."

"Islam and Christianity do not contradict each other, but they meet in high values to achieve significant benefits for the world."

"Honest and sincere people contribute in guaranteeing conviviality, freedom and stability. Religious teachings help in promoting and reinforcing ethics, respect, nobility, generosity, modesty, love and rightness."

"Religion and extremism never meet, since the religion is the source of love, but extremism is the source of hatred."

"Rafik [Hariri], a former prime minister and a prominent Sunni businessman, was assassinated in 2005, along with twenty-two others, when explosives hidden in a van were detonated as his motorcade drove near the St. Georges Hotel in Beirut. After a painful inquiry, the UN determined that the assassination was likely committed by members of Hezbollah with Syrian planning and logistical support. Hezbollah is the Shia political party and militant organization funded by Iran and Syria. Hariri's death was followed by a series of sectarian murders of other anti-Syrian politicians, compounding the long-standing frustration with Lebanon's failure to bring his killers to justice."

"This murder of Hariri was deliberately planned and executed precisely to implicate Syria and to set in train the events which have unfolded."

"It's not a problem to put it up, It's a problem to take it down."

"Yet his political fortunes were always hostage to his up-and-down relations with Syria's presidents, now Bashar al-Assad and before him his father, Hafez al-Assad. For the most part, he appeared to steer an even course. Unlike some of the more impetuous Lebanese clan and religious leaders, Mr. Hariri carefully avoided direct criticism of Syria's role as Lebanon's overlord."

"He (Yasser Arafat) was telling me about the situation he is living in. He said that all the buildings around his residence have been destroyed and they are -- they are on fire. And he told me that there is five people have been killed and they cannot move them. And about 40 persons were injured, and they cannot transfer them to the hospital."

"Yeah. Everybody has the right to defend himself, but by attacking headquarter of President Arafat, this will lead to -- to the security of Israel? I doubt that."

"Hope is more patient than despair and so outlasts it."

"To maintain immaculate speech, often times silence is required."

"Aphorisms respect the wisdom of silence by disturbing it, but briefly."

"I have lived half of my life in "Western society" and never encountered those principles [listed by the NYT as "Western" ]. What is wrong with me. … So Mr. Bush stands for "gender equality, religious freedom, scientific inquiry and the rule of law" and I have never noticed?"

"The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan gave us the Taliban. The American occupation of Saudi Arabia gave us bin Laden and Al Qaeda. The Israeli occupation of Lebanon gave us Hezbollah. Let us see what the American occupation of Iraq is going to give us."

"Paris Hilton gets more coverage than Congo, Darfur, Palestine, and Nahr Al-Barid combined."

"In Islam, there is no difference between the state and the religion. The religion is the state, the state is the religion."

"Europe will no longer be Europe by 2050. Europe has already become Eurabia. Europe is Eurabia right now"

"In countries like ours, women enter politics in mourning clothes."

"There is a saying that bad traders divorce their spouse sooner than abandon their positions. Loyalty to ideas is not a good thing for traders, scientists - or anyone."

"[T]hey share the traits of the acute successful randomness fool who, in addition, operates in the most random of environments. ...[T]heir bosses and employers shared the same trait. They, too, are permanently out of the market."

"[T]he mental probabilistic map in one's mind is so geared toward the sensational that one would realize informational gains by dispensing with the news."