Lebanese Quotes

• The Lebanese people voted this time for change. So they are not satisfied with the actual situation. They want to see a new government. They want to see a new vision.

  Rafik Hariri

  Government, People, Vision

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• As soon as the legitimate Lebanese government is convinced that the conditions have ripened and that Lebanon is able to maintain stability on its own... Then, the Syrian forces will return to their homeland.

  Bashar al-Assad

  Government, Lebanon, Able

  "An Interview With Bashar Al-Assad". Interview to Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, www.memri.org. June 12, 2000.

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• God willing, we shall come to a stage where the world looks at the Palestinian question, and Palestinian rights on Palestinian national soil, as well as the questions of the occupied Syrian and Lebanese territories. These are the bases on which peace will be built.

  King Hussein I

  Rights, Looks, World

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• The Syrians are trying to say that the Lebanese are not capable of ruling themselves.

  Walid Jumblatt

  Trying, Ruling, Capable

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• I have a lot of nice Italian winter clothes that make me look like a sophisticated Lebanese professor, so my friend Robert and I go around pretending to be experts in Arabic politics. It doesn't work in the summer though. I don't have the right clothes.

  Alexei Sayle

  Summer, Nice, Winter

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• Take a look at the Supreme Court decision that just authorized an effort by U.S. claimants against Iran for terrorist acts. What are the terrorist acts? The terrorist acts are bombings of U.S. military installations in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, which Iran is claimed to have something to do with. Well suppose they did. That's not terrorism. I mean if we have a military base in Lebanon that while we're shelling Lebanese naval ships, the Navy is shelling Lebanese installations and somebody attacks [that's not terrorism].

  Noam Chomsky

  Military, Mean, Iran

  "Anti-Intellectualism, Terrorism, and Elections in Contemporary Education: a Discussion with Noam Chomsky". Interview with Dan Falcone, www.counterpunch.org. June 3, 2016.

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• I covered the Lebanese civil war. I could see a place that had once been prosperous and now was impoverished. I'm not seeing that in America.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  War, America, Covered

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• When I arrived in Beirut from Europe, I felt the oppressive, damp heat, saw the unkempt palm trees and smelt the Arabic coffee, the fruit stalls and the over-spiced meat. It was the beginning of the Orient. And when I flew back to Beirut from Iran, I could pick up the British papers, ask for a gin and tonic at any bar, choose a French, Italian, or German restaurant for dinner. It was the beginning of the West. All things to all people, the Lebanese rarely questioned their own identity.

  Robert Fisk

  Coffee, Italian, Iran

  Robert Fisk (2001). “Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War”, p.163, Oxford University Press, USA

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• The bin Laden I met each time was in a simple Saudi white robe, with a simple, cheap kafiya and very cheap plastic sandals. But a videotape released before September 11, which I saw on Lebanese television, had him in a gold embroidered robe. When I saw this, I thought, whoa, has this guy changed? I wouldn't have imagined him ever appearing in such golden robes when I met him.

  Robert Fisk

  Simple, White, Guy

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. November 30, 2001.

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• Lebanese freedom of speech : You get to say whatever you like as long as the authorities approve of it... Hilarious.

  Ziad K. Abdelnour

  Long, Freedom Of Speech, Authority

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• For decades Israel has been capturing, and kidnapping Lebanese and Palestinian refugees on the high seas, from Cyprus to Lebanon, killing them in Lebanon, bringing them to Israel, holding them as hostages. It's been going on for decades, has anybody called for an invasion of Israel?

  Noam Chomsky

  Israel, Sea, Cyprus

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Even my landlord, who is a moderate Lebanese guy, says, "But bin Laden says what we think." These people believe that bin Laden is being targeted not because of the World Trade Center and Washington; they are not convinced by the evidence that has been produced. They believe he's being targeted because he tells the truth.

  Robert Fisk

  Believe, Thinking, People

  Interview with Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. November 30, 2001.

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• Israel has gone mad. It's attacking, doing the same thing to the Palestinian and Lebanese people that they have criticised - and with reason - the Holocaust . But this is a new Holocaust.

  Hugo Chavez

  Israel, People, Mad

  "Venezuela 'to sever Israel ties'", news.bbc.co.uk. August 9, 2006.

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• The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.

  Zuheir Mohsen

  Struggle, Islamic, Mean

  "Wij zijn alleen Palestijn om politieke reden". "Trouw", March 31, 1977.

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• The ultimate goal is to change Syria's behaviour on a variety of issues - on its interference in Lebanese internal affairs, on its support for Palestinian terrorist groups that oppose the Palestinian Authority, on, most importantly, acting as a land bridge between Iran and Hezbollah, where Hezbollah gets all its arms.

  Elliott Abrams

  Issues, Iran, Land

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• I'm a Lebanese woman who directs films. That's not it at all. I am not really a woman nor am I really an Arab. Because I am not an apologist for women, nor of sentimental "world" films.

  Danielle Arbid

  World, Sentimental, Film

  "‘Parisienne’ Director Danielle Arbid on Telling A Positive Story About a Foreigner Living in Paris". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. March 12, 2016.

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• "Parisienne" is about how you forge a life in a new place when you are 18. And it's about a Lebanese girl who discovers Paris and the French in the 90s, and through these encounters, discovers herself.

  Danielle Arbid

  Girl, Paris, Encounters

  "‘Parisienne’ Director Danielle Arbid on Telling A Positive Story About a Foreigner Living in Paris". Interview with Laura Berger, www.indiewire.com. March 12, 2016.

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• There's this Lebanese lady I dearly loved who raised 13 children in Toledo, and she retired in Phoenix. She said, I get up every morning and say, Thank you, God. I do the same thing now.

  Jamie Farr

  Morning, Children, Phoenix

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• All one needs to do is just to go to any hospital in America and see the number of Pakistani or Indian or Lebanese, or Syrian, or Egyptian doctors, who are either first generation or themselves immigrants, to know, and I'm a big believer - brains are distributed evenly around the world. What aren't distributed evenly are opportunities, stable government, educational institutions, etc.

  Thomas Friedman

  Educational, Opportunity, Doctors

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• My dad's half-Lebanese, my mom is full Lebanese. I'm three-quarters Lebanese. Irish-Lebanese.

  Tom Shadyac

  Mom, Dad, Three

  "Eye to Eye, Lie to Lie". Interview with Scott Collins, articles.latimes.com. March 12, 1997.

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• It is remarkable how fast and how effectively you can construct a nationality with a flag , a few speeches, and a national anthem; to this day I avoid the label "Lebanese," preferring the less restrictive "Levantine" designation.

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  Labels, Flags, Speech

  Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2010). “The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable Fragility"”, p.5, Random House

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• At Baalbek Nuts I bought pistachios from the Lebanese owners, who answered my request for their thoughts on the war with the typically Lebanese response of no problem. It's a lie, as we all knew.

  Robert Fisk

  War, Lying, Nuts

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• For my generation - the "Children of Nixon," as I call us in the book - the Lebanese civil war was an iconic event. Downtown Beirut became a metaphor for so many things: man's inhumanity to man, what Charles Bukowski called "the impossibility of being human." It shaped our perceptions of war and human nature, just as Vietnam did for our parents. We used it to understand how the world works.

  Annia Ciezadlo

  Children, War, Book

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• Some find Lebanese poet Kahlil Gibran’s poetry preachy and moralizing, but I find it plenty enlightening—it’s hard to object to the melodic, cosmic of mysticism of a line like ‘That which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.’

  Khalil

  Stars, Dwelling, Space

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• There's the complex categorization of low warmth/high competence. This is the hostile stereotype of Asian Americans by white America, of Jews in Europe, of Indo-Pakistanis in East Africa, of Lebanese in West Africa, of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia, and of the rich by the poor most everywhere. It's the same low-high derogation: They're cold, greedy, clannish - -but, dang, they're sure good at making money and you should go to one who is a doctor if you're seriously sick.

  Robert M. Sapolsky

  Doctors, Europe, White

  Source: www.psychologytoday.com

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