The Most Beautiful Expressions of Love by Mahmoud Darwish
- I desire nothing from love but a new beginning.
- Love is our sincere lie.
- This is love: I love you when I die, and when I love you, I feel I am dying.
- I train my heart to embrace love so it can contain both roses and thorns.
- No one changes abruptly; no one goes to sleep and wakes up transformed from one extreme to another. The truth is, there are moments when we close our eyes to love and open them to reality, allowing us to see with the eyes of reality truths we did not perceive through the lens of love.
- When love ends, I realize it was never truly love; love must be lived, not merely remembered.
- Love teaches me not to love and leaves me swept away amid the paper.
- Those who lack love fear the winter.
- Love, like death, is an irrevocable promise that does not fade.
- Love is not merely an idea; it is an emotion that heats and cools, arrives and departs. It takes form and essence, possessing five senses and more. At times, it appears to us in the guise of an angel with delicate wings capable of lifting us from the earth; at other times, it storms in like a bull, throwing us to the ground before fading away. Sometimes, it comes like a tempest whose destruction we recognize, while at other times, it arrives as the evening dew when a magical hand milks a wandering cloud. Love, like life and perishable goods, has an expiration date. However, I would rather experience love’s sudden end like a heart that gives out in the throes of passion, much like a horse plunging from a mountain into an abyss.
- Can I choose my dreams so that I do not find myself longing for the unattainable?
- As for me, I will enter the mulberry tree, where the silkworm transforms me into silk thread, and I will pass through the needle of a woman of legends before soaring away like a scarf in the wind.
- History mocks its victims and their heroes, casting only a glance before moving on.
- I came, but I did not arrive. I came, but I have not returned.
- We will become a people when we no longer recite prayers of gratitude to the sacred homeland every time a poor person finds their dinner. We will become a people when we dare to insult the sultan’s guard and the sultan himself without trial.
- I have loved you reluctantly, not because you are the most beautiful, but because you are the deepest; for those who adore beauty are often foolish.
- One day, I will become what I desire… I will one day become a bird, shedding my very essence as I approach the truth. Each time my wings burn, I draw nearer to truth, reviving from the ashes. I am the dialogue of dreamers, having abandoned my body and soul to continue my first journey towards meaning; but it burned me and vanished. I am absence; I am the celestial fugitive.
- Can I choose my dreams so that I do not find myself longing for the unattainable?
- As for me, I will enter the mulberry tree, where the silkworm transforms me into silk thread, passing through the needle of a woman from the realm of myths, then soaring like a scarf in the wind.
- History mocks its victims and their heroes, casting only a glance before moving on.
- I came, but I did not arrive. I came, but I have not returned.
- We will become a people when we no longer recite prayers of gratitude to the sacred homeland every time a poor person finds their dinner. We will become a people when we dare to insult the sultan’s guard and the sultan himself without trial.
- I only remember my heart when love tears it in two or when it dries up from the thirst of love.
- Once, I asked in anger how he would live tomorrow; he replied that tomorrow was not of my concern, as it was merely an idea that’s not on my mind. I am thus unchanged, and nothing will alter my state, just as I haven’t changed anything. Do not block the sun from me. I retorted that I am neither the haughty Alexander nor Diogenes. He answered, but indifference holds a philosophy; it is a trait of hope.
- I have loved you reluctantly, not because you are the most beautiful, but because you are the deepest; for those who adore beauty are often foolish.
- One day, I will become what I desire… I will one day become a bird, shedding my very essence as I approach the truth. Each time my wings burn, I draw nearer to truth, reviving from the ashes. I am the dialogue of dreamers, having abandoned my body and soul to continue my first journey towards meaning; but it burned me and vanished. I am absence; I am the celestial fugitive.
- A year passes, and another arrives, yet everything about you worsens, my homeland.
- Our skeletal structures and thrones are made of cane. In every minaret, there are usurpers and oppressors, calling for Andalusia as Aleppo is besieged.
- We have no hand in longing; in distance, we had a thousand hands. Peace be upon you; I have missed you dearly… and peace will find its way back to what I have lost.
- A country is born from the grave of another country; thieves worship God to gain the adoration of the people—kings forever and slaves eternally.
- We should not blame the suicide bombers. While we stand against them, we must comprehend what drives these young individuals to such acts. They seek to liberate themselves from this dark existence; it is not ideology, but despair.
- Each river possesses its source, course, and life. My friend, our land is not barren; all land has its birth. Each dawn awaits a rebel’s appointment.
- And here I am, capable of living until the end of the month, exerting effort to write what will persuade my heart to beat within me and what will convince my spirit to live beyond me. It is within the capacity of gardenias to renew my life, and a woman can dictate my end.
- Indifference bears a philosophy; it is a trait of hope.
- And we have our smaller dreams: awakening from sleep free of disappointment… not longing for unattainable things. We live on, and hope remains.
As if your hands were the only place… as if your hands were a country… Ah, what a homeland in this body.
- Forgetfulness is the training of the imagination to respect reality.
- There exists a love that passes through us, unnoticed by both parties.
- By ill fate, I forgot how long the night is, but fortunately for you, I remembered you until dawn.
- What is the homeland? It is not a question with an answer to merely pass through. It is your life and your cause intertwined.
- A knight drives a dagger into his brother’s heart in the name of the homeland and prays for forgiveness.
What is the homeland? It is the longing to die to restore justice and land. The homeland is not merely a territory; it embodies both land and justice—justice resides within you, while the land belongs to them.