Top 215 Arabic Quotes & Sayings

I think my dad is the only Arabic descendent who is an unsuccessful businessman.

I think in Arabic at times, but when I'm writing it's all in English. And I don't try to make my English sound more Arabic, because it would be phony - I'm imagining Melanie Griffith trying to do a German accent in Shining Through. It just wouldn't work. But the language in my head is a specific kind of English. It's not exactly American, not exactly British. Because everything is filtered through me, through my experience. I'm Lebanese, but not that much. American, but not that much. Gay, but not that much. The only thing I'm sure of, really, is that I'm under 5'7".

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.

I grew up speaking Arabic at home.

I went to a mosque in Philadelphia with [my wife] in December 24, 1999. And we we went to this mosque in Philly, and I just had such a strong reaction to the prayer. And I was really emotionally - I felt really grounded at that time. And so to be in this prayer and the imam is doing the prayer in Arabic and I don't understand a word of Arabic but I just remember these tears just coming down my face and it just really connecting to my spirit in a way that felt like I needed to pay attention to that.

All the sciences came to exist in Arabic. The systematic works on them were written in Arabic writing.

There is no other language as similar to Hebrew like Arabic.

I was proud my father spoke Arabic fluently - his father sent him to learn Arabic from a sheikh - and we had Arab friends. His task of understanding the Arabs - not only politics but poetry - was very important; he took it as a vocation.

I feel a great kinship with my origins, even though I only learned a few words of Arabic.

As teenagers, a lot of us just did not want much to do with Arabic culture - we looked to the West.

I'm very much an Arab, although I need to practise my Arabic more.

It's complicated for my music to be accepted, even in Lebanon and the Arabic world - I sing in Arabic, but there's no lute, no classical instruments. Maybe with the Internet opening things up, things will change.

Pomegranate molasses is ubiquitous in Arabic cooking: it's sweet, sour and adds depth.

It's ridiculous and painful to use the Arabic of an Iraqi poet who lived centuries ago to describe what we in Iraq are suffering today.

I graduated with a foreign affairs/Middle East studies degree with a minor in Arabic from UVA in 2002.

All the children in the world, when they go to school, have the right to study in their mother tongue. But we go to school and run into literary Arabic as children. It sounds like a foreign language. The words for "house" or "table" or "lamp" are not the same as the words we use at home, and most of the other words are alien to children at school. Classical Arabic is one of the prisons of the Arab world.

All of the Arabic women I grew up listening to or watching had a very strong character.

Learn Arabic, for it strengthens the intelligence and increases one’s noble conduct (al-murû`ah).

I really wanted to take 'Dilbar' to Africa and the Middle East in Arabic because it was also a perfect way to launch myself.

Arabs don't do crime fiction. I read crime fiction and I read Arabic literature, and I wish this was a novel I could have read in Arabic.

My name means 'hope' in Arabic, and I was born when there was a war in Lebanon.

The Malays can hardly be said to have an indigenous literature, for it is almost entirely derived from Persia, Siam, Arabia, and Java. Arabic is their sacred language.

I'm very proud that I can be myself. I'm not trying to be Arabic, I'm just being me, and I happen to be Arabic. I think that might be refreshing to some people, and it's a bit more realistic than these pantomime villains we've seen before.

I was at Edinburgh doing history of art, Spanish and Arabic. I was originally supposed to do Italian instead of Arabic but when I went to see one of the lecturers they told me I should really do something more curveball. So I did.

I couldn't know about my culture, my history, without learning the language, so I started learning Arabic - reading, writing. I used to speak Arabic before that, but Tunisian Arabic dialect. Step by step, I discovered calligraphy. I painted before and I just brought the calligraphy into my artwork. That's how everything started. The funny thing is the fact that going back to my roots made me feel French.

It sometimes happens to me while writing, that I seek a word; mischievous as it is it appears in English, it appears in Arabic, but refuses to come in Hebrew. To some extent I made up my Hebrew. Unquestionably, the influence of Arabic is dominant, my syntax is almost Arabic.

Learn the Arabic language; it will sharpen your wisdom.

We have Al Jazeera Arabic news, Al Jazeera English news, of course; we have three sports channels, and we have Al Jazeera Mubasher, which is a live channel that broadcasts live press conferences and symposiums and meetings. And, of course, we have Al Jazeera commentary in Arabic.

Modern Arabic literature achieved international recognition when Mahfouz was awarded the Nobel prize in 1988 (.....) Mahfouz also rendered Arabic literature a great service by developing, over the years, a form of language in which many of the archaisms and cliches that had become fashionable were discarded, a language that could serve as an adequate instrument for the writing of fiction in these times.

I had an Arabic background. but I lived a very scattered childhood. I didn't belong to any one culture, which meant I didn't have musical geographies in my head.

We [ with Russel Crowe] had an Arabic coach there [ in the Body of Lies] that was really helpful, because it was more so than any accent. You have to be so exact, and there's different dialects of Arabic from country to country so it was really, really difficult to tell you the truth. And one of the hardest things I've ever had to do language-wise, because it comes from the throat. It's different. And also learning about the customs and the culture and all that, so we had advisors for that sort of thing.

I don't know Arabic. I can't speak or write it.

In school in Lebanon, we were not allowed to speak Arabic during breaks - it had to be French or English.

Ive got Arabic music in my blood.

I've got Arabic music in my blood.

When I started, I didn't know how to sing in Arabic - it's a very complex and sophisticated music full of codes and modes and quarter-tones.

Today, only about 1% of the World Wide Web is written in Arabic.

In Arabic, 'Naseem' means a gentle breeze. But inside the guy's a monster.

I feel pretty stupid that I don't know any foreign languages. I wish I knew French or Arabic or Chinese.

The Arabic music I listen to is extremely edgy. Ironic, sarcastic, sensual, erotic.

One effect that the Nobel Prize seems to have had is that more Arabic literary works have been translated into other languages.

Being published in Arabic is a strong and consistent wish I have. I live in the Middle East and want to be in some sort of an unpragmatic dialogue with my neighbors.

Everybody needs to understand that I learned Arabic from the United States Army as a second language. I never spoke it at home.

The Arabic states have to be integrated into the Iraqi reconstruction. We need the help of the Arabic community, which understands its culture. Americans arrive, invade, occupy.

I had this desire to understand Islam better and then focus on the beauty of Arabic and Islamic cultures. And one of the first things to emerge was Arabic calligraphy, which was instantly inspiring.

Woman at Point Zero I wrote during the '70s in Arabic. It came in English in '82. So, almost ten years' difference between the Arabic and the English.

I don't speak Arabic - I know a little to get by, but that's all.

Arak means 'sweat' in Arabic, and it is the perfect Mediterranean after-dinner drink, in my opinion.

'Khalifa' is Arabic, it means successor, leader, shining light. My granddad is Muslim and he gave me that name.

The sign was spray-painted in Arabic and English, probably from some attempt by the farmer to sell his wares in the market. The English read: Dates-best price. Cold Bebsi. "Bebsi?" I asked. "Pepsi," Walt said. "I read about it on the Internet. There's no 'p' in Arabic. Everyone here calls the soda Bebsi." "So you have to have Bebsi with your bizza?" "Brobably.

Foreigners who speak Arabic in the Middle East are often assumed to be working for the C.I.A. or Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad.

There is an Arabic writer who wrote philosophy and poetry and who brought all religions and all the world together.

I studied Arabic and speak some Spanish.

I sing in Arabic as a statement. It's art, and it's a challenge.

I still write in literary Arabic but I try to rid it of the rhetoric, the symbolism, and the stuff that ordinary people don't understand.

There's a big difference between the Arabic and Western scales. One uses quarter tone system and one doesn't. So in order for me to compose real Arabic scale melodies, I would need an Arabic keyboard, and I don't have one. So I had to compose Arabesque melodies.

Especially after the Twin Towers, we're so terrified of 'Arabic' people. And talk about stereotypical negative portrayals of people of certain groups, if you look at the portrayal of Arabic people in Hollywood films, it's just appalling. They've always been just the easiest of targets - along with native Africans and what have you.

Whenever I come across an Arabic word mired in English text, I am momentarily shocked out of the narrative.

MEMRI allows an audience far beyond the Arabic-speaking world to observe the wide variety of Arab voices speaking through the media, schoolbooks, and pulpits to their own people. What one hears is often astonishing, sometimes frightening, and always important. Most importantly, it includes the newly-emerging liberal voices of reform and hope, as well as disturbing echoes of ancient hatreds. Without the valuable research of MEMRI, the non-Arabic speaking world would not have this indispensable window.

I'm shy, but sometimes my voice is so clear and strong. Your tongue moves, and the Arabic language is so beautiful.