Arabian Quotes - Page 2

• There's a whole slew of wonderful speculation of flying in a fanciful way. Gulliver is one of the central examples; Swift has the hum of Arabian Nights in his ear with Gulliver's Travels. The difference is in scale - Gulliver as a kind of Sinbad kind of figure, the way he is picked up and carried. Just to finish up with Scheherazade, I do think that The Arabian Nights could be considered as a great book on women's position in the world.

  Marina Warner

  Book, Night, Thinking

  Source: therumpus.net

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• With Ameen Rihani the matter is diametrically opposite to Alois Musil's Arabian Desert, in purpose, in point of view and, above all, in personal psychology... I have considerable admiration for Mr. Rihani as a writer, an authentic poet and a philosopher.

  William Seabrook

  Views, Opposites, Psychology

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• Islam is a civilization that is fractured linguistically, ethnically, sectarian-wise, as ours is. What bin Laden has done, though, is to identify a number of issues that are tangible and visceral for Muslims. His indictment list of Western support for Arab tyranny, our ability to keep oil prices too low - at least until recently - our occupation of the Arabian Peninsula.

  Michael Scheuer

  Wise, Civilization, Oil

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Iraq, for the first time, gives al Qaeda and its allies contiguous safe-haven territory to train and launch attacks into the Levant. First into Jordan and Syria, and then into Lebanon, and virtually and ultimately into Israel and probably Egypt too. It also gives them haven to eventually work their way toward Turkey and into the Arabian Peninsula.

  Michael Scheuer

  Safe Haven, Israel, Egypt

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Any strong Muslim regime that threatens Israel, and we did. He said the Americans only want oil, and, of course, Iraq has the second-largest reserves. And he said that we will always replace God's law with manmade law. And finally that we intended to occupy and destroy Islamic sanctities. And I suspect that in our government, very few people knew that Iraq was the second-holiest place in Islam, after the Arabian Peninsula.

  Michael Scheuer

  Strong, Islamic, Government

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The other thing about the Nights is that it is quite racist. One parentheses is that I think this is one of the negative things that appeal to people, that The Arabian Nights could be used as a disguise for racism. It suited the West. You could smuggle racism into children's literature, you see. The African magician in the story of Aladdin, he's labeled explicitly as the "African Magician." He's not a character but a stereotype, and a lot of this got into nursery literature in this Oriental disguise.

  Marina Warner

  Children, Character, Night

  Source: therumpus.net

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• There are a range of women not represented in the Western fairy tale tradition. Husband-beaters are particularly interesting, as well as male pederasts. Children are often told in The Arabian Nights, "This man likes to abduct boys, be careful of him." These issues are explored through the medium of the stories, but actually the architecture of the book is such that there are many examples of women who are loyal, brave, devoted - especially to their lovers.

  Marina Warner

  Children, Husband, Book

  Source: therumpus.net

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• Saudi Arabian oil production is at or very near its peak sustainable volume (if it did not, in fact peak almost 25 years ago), and is likely to go into decline in the very foreseeable future. There is only a small probability that Saudi Arabia will ever deliver the quantities of petroleum that are assigned to it in all the major forecasts of world oil production and consumption.

  Matthew Simmons

  Years, Oil, Saudi Arabia

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• It is possible that our race may be an accident, in a meaningless universe, living its brief life uncared for, on this dark, cooling star: but even so - and all the more - what marvelous creatures we are! What fairy story, what tale from the Arabian Nights of the jinns, is a hundredth part as wonderful as this true fairy story of simians! It is so much more heartening, too, than the tales we invent. A universe capable of giving birth to many such accidents is - blind or not - a good world to live in, a promising universe. . . . We once thought we lived on God's footstool, it may be a throne.

  Clarence Day

  Life, Stars, Dark

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• I came to the place of my birth and cried: "The friends of my youth, where are they?"--and an echo answered, "Where are they?

  Samuel Rogers

  Echoes, Youth, Birth

  Samuel Rogers (1854). “The complete poetical works of Samuel Rogers: with a biographical sketch, and notes”, p.93

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• Saudi Arabian police arrested seven teenage boys for leering at women. In accordance with Saudi law, the boys will be whipped and the women will be stoned to death.

  Tina Fey

  Teenage, Boys, Law

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• The passion for travelling is, I believe, instinctive in some natures. We have seen men persevere in their enterprises against the most formidable obstacles; and, without means or friends, and even ignorant of the languages of the various countries through which they passed, pursue their perilous journeys into remote places, until, like the knight in the Arabian tale, they succeeded in snatching a memorial from every shrine they visited.

  James Holman

  Country, Believe, Passion

  James Holman (2009). “A Voyage Round the World: Volume I, Including Travels in Africa, Asia, Australasia, America, etc., etc., from 1827 to 1832”, p.6, The Floating Press

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• It was like being at an Arabian hoedown with a band of psychedelic hillbillies (p. 171).

  Patti Smith

  Band, Psychedelic

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• Death is a black camel, which kneels at the gates of all.

  Abdelkader El Djezairi

  Death, Black, Camels

  "The Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations". Edited by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 79, 1882.

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• An old Arabian fable tells of a prince imprisoned in a castle which had thirteen windows. Twelve of these windows overlooked lovely scenes, while the thirteenth looked down on the black ash heaps of the city. Ignoring the twelve windows, the prince always looked out through the thirteenth. It is so often true that whether a person carries with him an atmosphere of gloom and depression or one of confidence and courage depends on his individual outlook.

  James Keller

  Courage, Cities, Individuality

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• I have never in my life encountered a religion as oppressive, cold, and stiff as Progressivism. I've never known a faith more eager to burn heretics at the stake. Even a fundamentalist Iranian Muslim would flinch if he came face to face with a western liberal's rigid dogmatism. I imagine that even a Saudi Arabian Islamic cleric would take one look at how American left wingers react when anyone deviates ever so slightly from their established orthodoxy, and say to himself, 'man, these people REALLY need to chill.

  Matt Walsh

  Islamic, Men, People

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• In the world of animation, you can be anything you wanna be. If you're a fat woman, you can play a skinny princess. If you're short wimpy guy, you can play a tall gladiator. If you're a white man, you can play an Arabian prince. And if you're a black man, you can play a donkey or a zebra.

  Chris Rock

  Zebras, Princess, Men

  "Rock's Riff On Animation: Right On Or Really Wrong?" by Christine Champ, www.mtv.com. March 7, 2012.

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• The best blended Scotch in the history of the world - which was also the favourite drink of the Iraqi Baath Party, as it still is of the Palestinian Authority and the Libyan dictatorship and large branches of the Saudi Arabian royal family - is Johnnie Walker Black. Breakfast of champions, accept no substitute.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Party, Scotch, Champion

  "Background Briefing" with Kirsten Garrett, www.abc.net.au. August 16, 2009.

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• During all the first part of the Middle Ages, no other people made as important a contribution to human progress as did the Arabs, if we take this term to mean all those whose mother-tongue was Arabic, and not merely those living in the Arabian peninsula. For centuries, Arabic was the language of learning, culture and intellectual progress for the whole of the civilized world with the exception of the Far East. From the IXth to the XIIth century there were more philosophical, medical, historical, religiuos, astronomical and geographical works written in Arabic than in any other human tongue.

  Philip Khuri Hitti

  Mother, Islamic, Philosophical

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  He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Inspirational, Fitness, Hope

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• A little and a little, collected together, becomes a great deal; the heap in the barn consists of single grains, and drop and drop make the inundation.

  Saadi

  Perseverance, Together, Barns

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• In the Spanish people there is a mixture of Gothic, Frankish and Moorish blood. One can speak of the Spaniard as one would speak of a brave anarchist. The Arabian epoch-the Arabs look down on the Turks as they do on dogs-was the most cultured, the most intellectual and in every way best and happiest epoch in Spanish history. It was followed by the period of the persecutions with its unceasing atrocities.

  Adolf Hitler

  Dog, Blood, People

  Adolf Hitler (1953). “Secret conversations, 1941-1944”

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• What does cookery mean? It means the knowledge of Medea and of Circe,
  and of Calypso, and Sheba. It means knowledge of all herbs, and fruits, and
  balms and spices... It means the economy of your great-grandmother and the
  science of modern chemistry, and French art, and Arabian hospitality. It
  means, in fine, that you are to see imperatively that everyone has something
  nice to eat.

  John Ruskin

  Art, Nice, Food

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• Four things do not come back: the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past life, and the neglected opportunity.

  Ted Chiang

  Inspirational, Leadership, Wisdom

  Ted Chiang (2007). “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate”, Subterranean

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• I go back to the reading room, where I sink down in the sofa and into the world of The Arabian Nights. Slowly, like a movie fadeout, the real world evaporates. I'm alone, inside the world of the story. My favourite feeling in the world.

  Haruki Murakami

  Real, Reading, Night

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “Kafka On The Shore”, p.61, Random House

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