Mikhail Naimy Quotes

To the unspoiled, even a snikebite is a loving kiss. But to the spoiled even a loving kiss is a snake bite.

Of two men looking at a green field, one estimates its yield in bushels and calculates the price of the bushels in silver and in gold. The other drinks the greenness of the field with his eye, and kisses every blade with his thought, and fraternizes in his soul with every rootlet and pebble, and every clod of earth.

Except you be fed with the grapes of Love you shall no be filled with the wine of
Understanding.

Less possessing-less possessed.
More possessing-more possessed.
More possessed-less accessed.
Less possessed-more accessed.

No love is Love that subjugates the Lover.
No love is Love that feeds on flesh and blood.
No love is Love that draws a woman to a man only to breed
more women and men and thus perpetuate their bondage to the flesh.

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.

Take care that you hold not your priceless life so cheap as gold.

Once Understanding is unveiled, then victory is won and Peace established in the heart for ever and anon. An understanding heart is ever at peace even amid a war-dazed world. An ignorant heart is a dual heart. A dual heart makes for a dual world. A dual world breeds constant strife and war. Whereas an understanding heart is a single heart. A single heart makes for a single world. A single world is a world at peace. For it takes two to make a war.

Be steady. Make ready. Keep your eyes, and ears, and tongues on fast so that your hearts may know that holy hunger which, once appeased, leaves you forever full. You

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.You are
the tree of Life. Beware of fractionating yourselves. Set not a fruit against a fruit, a leaf against a leaf, a bough against a bough; nor
set the stem against the roots; nor set the tree against the mother-
soil. That is precisely what you do when you love one part more than
the rest, or to the exclusion of the rest. No love is possible except
by the love of self. No self is real save the All-embracing Self.
Therefore is God all Love, because he loves himself. So long as you
are pained by Love, you have not found your real self, nor have you
found the golden key of Love. Because you love an ephemeral self, your
love is ephemeral.

Aye, fight! But not your neighbor. Fight rather all the things that cause you and your neighbor to fight.

If then, your world be such a baffling riddle, it is because you are that baffling riddle. And if your speech be such a woeful maze, it is because you are that woeful maze.

Love neither lends nor borrows; Love neither buys nor sells; but when it gives, it gives it s all; and when it takes, it takes its all. Its very taking is a giving. Its very giving is a taking. Therefore is it the same to-day, to-morrow and forevermore.

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.

The really poor is he who misuses what he has. The really rich is he who well uses what he has.

Rejoice, Micayon. Yours is a prophet's dream. The Great Nostalgia has made your world too small, and made you a stranger in that world. It has unloosed your imagination from the grip of
the despotic senses; and imagination has brought you forth your Faith.
And Faith shall lift you high above the stagnant, stifling world and carry you across the dreary emptiness and up the Rugged Mountains where every faith must needs be tried and purified of
the last dregs of Doubt.

And Faith so purified and triumphant shall lead you to the boundaries of the eternally green summit and there deliver you into the hands of Understanding.

Having discharged its task, Faith shall retire, and Understanding shall guide your steps to the unutterable Freedom of the
Summit which is the true, the boundless, and all-including home of God and the Overcoming
Man.

A man of distinguished, beautiful eloquence, and persistent, over pressing thought ... Ameen Rihani was one of the foremost pioneers of modern illumination. He firmly believed in the significance of reviving the Arab spirit and protecting the freedom of thought and the freedom of human conscience ...

Not celibate are they who wear monastic garb and shut themselves away behind thick walls and massive iron gates, But
celibate are they whose hearts and minds are celibate, whether they be in cloisters or in the public marts.

Too vast is Man and too imponderable his nature. Too varied are his
talents, and too inexhaustible his strength. Beware of those who
attempt to set him boundaries.Live as if your God Himself had need of
you His life to live. And so, in truth, He does.

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.

Because of their lust for authority men are in constant turmoil. Those in authority are ever fighting to maintain it. Those out of authority are ever struggling to snatch it from the hands of those who hold it. While Man, the God in swaddling-bands, is trampled under foot and hoof
and left on the field of battle unnoticed, unattended and unsolved. So furious is the fight, and so blood crazed the fighters that none, alas, would stop to lift the painted mask off the face of the spurious bride and expose her monstrous ugliness to all.
Believe, O monks, that no authority is worth the flutter of an eyelash, except the authority of Holy Understanding which is priceless. For that no sacrifice is great. Attain it once, and you
shall hold it to the end of Time. And it shall charge your words with more power than all the armies of the world can ever command; and it shall bless your deeds with more beneficence than all the world authorities combined can ever dream of bringing to the world.

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

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

إذا كنتم عبيداً في الأرض وقيل لكم: ازهدوا في حرية الأرض,ففي السماء تنتظركم حرية لاتوصف. اجيبوه: من لم يتذوق الحرية في الأرض لن يعرف طعمها في السماء

If you are slaves on Earth & you were told: "Renounce Earthly Freedom, for in Heaven awaits you unimaginalbe Freedom!" Answer him: "He who did not taste Freedom on Earth, will not know it in Heaven!

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

All is a riddle to the man who trails a shadow. For that man walks in borrowed light, therefore he stumbles on his shadow.