A collection of sayings and quotes by Nizar Qabbani on love, romance, eroticism, feminism, Quran, women, feelings, pain, poetry, tears, arabs and freedom.
Nizar Tawfiq Qabbani was a Syrian poet and diplomat, who lived in the 19th century and is often regarded as one of the greatest Arab poets of the modern era. He was born in a mercantile family in Syria’s capital Damascus and studied at the Scientific College School, before graduating in law from Damascus University in 1945. Qabbani had started writing poems from an early age and his first poem collection titled ‘The Brunette Told Me’ was published while he was still in law school. He entered the Syrian Foreign Ministry soon after and worked in different parts of the world, before resigning in 1966 in order to concentrate on his publishing business. However, it was as a poet that Qabbani really became an iconic figure and over the course of his career that lasted over several decades, he wrote on themes like Arab nationalism, feminism, love and eroticism that made him one of the greatest poets in the Arab world. Some of his noted poem collections include ‘You Are Mine’, ‘Poems Against the Law’, ‘Childhood of a Breast’, ‘My Beloved’, ‘Book of Love’, ‘Samba’ and ‘Diary of an Indifferent Woman’ among many others. Here is a collection of some of Nizar Qabbani’s most profound quotes that have been extracted from the vast sea of his work, writings, books and poems. Read on the thoughts and quotes of Nizar Qabbani that will fill your heart with love.
In the summer
I stretch out on the shore
And think of you. Had I told the sea
What I felt for you,
It would have left its shores,
Its shells,
Its fish,
And followed me.
There is who loves you quietly, and respects you quietly, and wishes you privately, and walks away when he sees you busy with someone other than him, and his ego restrains him from getting near you, and contents himself with the love for the sake of love
There are some people that we didn't forget, but we don't smile any more when they're mentioned.
Nizar Qabbani
Arab children, Corn ears of the future, You will break our chains, Kill the opium in our heads, Kill the illusions. Arab children, Don't read about our suffocated generation, We are a hopeless case. We are as worthless as a water-melon rind. Dont read about us, Dont ape us, Dont accept us, Dont accept our ideas, We are a nation of crooks and jugglers. Arab children, Spring rain, Corn ears of the future, You are the generation That will overcome defeat.
Kill him, then hug him.
Men are more faithful when dead.
Nizar Qabbani
When a man is in love how can he use old words? Should a woman desiring her lover lie down with grammarians and linguists? I said nothing to the woman I loved but gathered love's adjectives into a suitcase and fled from all languages.
Love in the Arab world is like a prisoner, and I want to set (it) free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense and body with my poetry. The relationships between men and women in our society are not healthy.
Our shouting is louder than our actions,
Our swords are taller than us,
This is our tragedy.
In short
We wear the cape of civilisation
But our souls live in the stone age
Nizar Qabbani
Because my love for you is beyond words, I decided to shut up.
We killed you and it was not new for us, we killed the companions of the Prophet and the friends of God. O how many Messengers did we slay? O how many imams? We killed you and you prayed the night prayer, as all of our days are struggle - and all of our days are Karbala.
Don’t love deeply, till you make sure that the other part loves you with the same depth, because the depth of your love today, is the depth of your wound tomorrow.
The female doesn’t want a rich man or a handsome man or even a poet, she wants a man who understands her eyes if she gets sad, and points to his chest and say : 'Here is your home country.
We are a thick skinned people with emtpy souls. We spend our days playing dice, chess, or sleeping - and we say we are the best people that ever came to mankind?
Don't love deeply, till you make sure that the other part loves you with the same depth, because the depth of your love today, is the depth of your wound tomorrow.
During times of war.
I want to say:
I only love you,
And I cling you,
Like the peel clings to a pomegranate,
Like the tear clings to the eye,
Like the knife clings to the wound.
In the summer I stretch out on the shore And think of you. Had I told the sea What I felt for you, It would have left its shores, Its shells, Its fish, And followed me.
The female doesn't want a rich man or a handsome man or even a poet, she wants a man who understands her eyes if she gets sad, and points to his chest and say : 'Here is your home country.'
In the end, forgetting is nothing but turning a page in the book of life. It may seem an easy matter, but as long as you can’t tear it, you will keep on stumbling upon it between each season of your life.
 free. I want to free the Arab soul, sense and body with my poetry. The relationships between men and women in our society are not healthy. )
