Amin Maalouf Quotes

• The identity cannot be compartmentalized; it cannot be split in halves or thirds, nor have any clearly defined set of boundaries. I do not have several identities, I only have one, made of all the elements that have shaped its unique proportions.

  Amin Maalouf

  Unique, Identity, Elements

  97 Copy quote

• Never hesitate to go far away, beyond all seas, all frontiers, all countries, all beliefs.

  Amin Maalouf

  Country, Sea, Belief

  Amin Maalouf (1998). “Leo Africanus”, p.360, New Amsterdam Books

  93 Copy quote

• For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free.

  Amin Maalouf

  People, Looks, May

  Amin Maalouf (2001). “In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong”, p.22, Arcade Publishing

  47 Copy quote

• What makes me myself rather than anyone else is the very fact that I am poised between two countries, two or three languages, and several cultural traditions. It is precisely this that defines my identity. Would I exist more authentically if I cut off a part of myself

  Amin Maalouf

  Country, Cutting, Two

  Amin Maalouf (2001). “In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong”, p.1, Arcade Publishing

  78 Copy quote

• I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road... all tongues and all prayers belong to me. But I belong to none of them.

  Amin Maalouf

  Country, Prayer, Son

  Amin Maalouf (1998). “Leo Africanus”, p.1, New Amsterdam Books

  53 Copy quote

• Let your tears roll tonight, but tomorrow you will start the battle again. What defeats us, always, is just our own sorrow.

  Amin Maalouf

  Sorrow, Tears, Battle

  61 Copy quote

• Isn't it a characteristic of the age we live in that it has made everyone in a way a migrant and a member of a minority?

  Amin Maalouf

  Age, Migrants, Minorities

  Amin Maalouf (2001). “In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong”, p.37, Arcade Publishing

  56 Copy quote

• Every individual is a meeting ground for many different allegiances, and sometimes these loyalties conflict with one another and confront the person who harbors them with difficult choices

  Amin Maalouf

  Loyalty, Difficult Choices, Different

  53 Copy quote

• How do I pray? I study a rose, I count the stars, I marvel at the beauty of creation and how perfectly ordered it is, at man, the most beautiful work of the Creator, his brain thirsting for knowledge, his heart for love, and his senses, all his senses alert or gratified.

  Amin Maalouf

  Beautiful, Stars, Heart

  Amin Maalouf (1998). “Samarkand”, Interlink Publishing Group Incorporated

  64 Copy quote

• I am the son of the road , my country is a caravan and my life is the most unexpected of voyages. i belong to earth and to the god and it is to them that I will one day soon return

  Amin Maalouf

  Country, Son, One Day

  60 Copy quote

• People sometimes imagine that just because they have access to so many newspapers, radio and TV channels, they will get an infinity of different opinions. Then they discover that things are just the opposite: the power of these loudspeakers only amplifies the opinion prevalent at a certain time, to the point where it covers any other opinion.

  Amin Maalouf

  Others Opinions, Opposites, People

  58 Copy quote

• A life spent writing has taught me to be wary of words. Those that seem clearest are often the most treacherous.

  Amin Maalouf

  Writing, Taught, Treacherous

  Amin Maalouf (2001). “In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong”, p.9, Arcade Publishing

  62 Copy quote

• Taking the line of least resistance, we lump the most different people together under the same heading. Taking the line of least resistance, we ascribe to them collective crimes, collective acts and opinions. "The Serbs have massacred…", "The English have devastated…", "The Jews have confiscated…", "The Blacks have torched", "The Arabs refuse…". We blithely express sweeping judgments on whole peoples, calling them "hardworking" and "ingenious", or "lazy", "touchy", "sly", "proud", or "obstinate". And sometimes this ends in bloodshed." – Amin Maalouf "On Identity

  Amin Maalouf

  People, Lazy, Together

  75 Copy quote

• let us thank God for having made us this gift of death, so that life is to have meaning; of night, that day is to have meaning; silence, that speech is to have meaning; illness, that health is to have meaning; war, that peace is to have meaning. Let us give thanks to Him for having given us weariness and pain, so that rest and joy are to have meaning. Let us give thanks to him, whose wisdom is infinite.

  Amin Maalouf

  Pain, War, Night

  Amin Maalouf (1998). “Leo Africanus”, p.103, New Amsterdam Books

  49 Copy quote

• The fact of simultaneously being Christian and having as my mother tongue Arabic, the holy language of Islam, is one of the basic paradoxes that have shaped my identity.

  Amin Maalouf

  Christian, Mother, Identity

  Amin Maalouf (2001). “In the Name of Identity: Violence and the Need to Belong”, p.16, Arcade Publishing

  26 Copy quote

• life is not so long that one can grow tired of it

  Amin Maalouf

  Tired, Long, Life Is

  Amin Maalouf (1999). “Ports of call”, Harvill Press

  34 Copy quote

• are you certain that a man's life begins with his birth?

  Amin Maalouf

  Men, Birth, Certain

  Amin Maalouf, Alberto Manguel (1999). “Ports of call”, Harvill Press

  40 Copy quote

• We are not just visitors on this planet, it belongs to us just as we belong to her, its past is ours, so is its future.

  Amin Maalouf

  Past, Visitors, Planets

  31 Copy quote

• You can't say history teaches us this or that; it gives us more questions than answers, and many answers to every question.

  Amin Maalouf

  Giving, Answers, Teach

  "A son of the road" by Maya Jaggi, www.theguardian.com. November 15, 2002.

  30 Copy quote

• ... we die, just as we were born, at the edge of a road not of our choosing.

  Amin Maalouf

  Born, Dies, Edges

  Amin Maalouf (2008). “Origins: A Memoir”, p.299, Macmillan

  32 Copy quote

• Nothing is born of nothing, least of all knowledge, modernity, or enlightened thought; progress is made in tiny surges, in successive laps, like an endless relay race. But there are links without which nothing would be passed on, and for that reason, they deserve the gratitude of all who benefited from them.

  Amin Maalouf

  Gratitude, Race, Progress

  Amin Maalouf (2008). “Origins: A Memoir”, p.412, Macmillan

  35 Copy quote

• All pleasures must be paid for, do not despise those that state their price.

  Amin Maalouf

  Pleasure, States, Despise

  Amin Maalouf (1994). “The Rock of Tanios”, George Braziller

  21 Copy quote

• God, she was beautiful - my first image of the Orient - a woman such as only the desert poet knew how to praise: her face was the sun, her hair the protecting shadow, her eyes fountains of cool water, her body the most slender of palm-trees and her smile a mirage.

  Amin Maalouf

  Beautiful, Eye, Hair

  Amin Maalouf (1998). “Samarkand”, Interlink Publishing Group Incorporated

  28 Copy quote

• Our ancestors derived less from life than we do, but they also expected much less and were less intent on controlling the future. We are of the arrogant generations who believe a lasting happiness was promised to us at birth. Promised? By whom?

  Amin Maalouf

  Believe, Lasting Happiness, Generations

  Amin Maalouf (2008). “Origins: A Memoir”, p.342, Macmillan

  23 Copy quote

• Life is like a fire. Flames which the passer-by forgets. Ashes which the wind scatters. A man lived.

  Amin Maalouf

  Men, Fire, Flames

  Amin Maalouf (1998). “Samarkand”, Interlink Publishing Group Incorporated

  12 Copy quote

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