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Aphorisms are like seeds, carrying entire orchards.
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To write is to eavesdrop, to translate silence, to become porous to the Unseen.
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The human condition? Crossing a bridge of light over a trembling abyss.
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The soul learns in flashes. Most of the time, we’re just trying not to look away.
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Half of seeing ourselves in everyone is compassion, the other half is arrogance.
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We are taunted by the distance between our best insights and our foolishness.
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Exiles speak a language that only other exiles can understand.
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The secret exerts a gravitational pull.
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Pain has its own time zone.
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The punishment of the oppressor is that they are denied poetry.
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Yahia Lababidi is an Arab-American writer, poet, and aphorist, author of twelve books. His recent titles include Palestine Wail (Daraja Press, 2024) and On the Contrary: Wilde and Nietzsche (Fomite Press, 2025). His work appears in Liberties, Salmagundi, The New Statesman, Sojourners, and The Threepenny Review.