Kahlil Gibran
Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.
No longing remains unfulfilled.
What difference does it make, whether you live in a big city or in a community of homes ? The real life is within.
The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.
It is the mind in us that yields to the laws made by us, but never the spirit in us.
He who would share your pleasure but not your pain shall lose the key to one of the seven gates of Paradise.
Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; is the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
There is neither religion nor science beyond beauty.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you
is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment
which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.
Every seed is a longing.
Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.
Everything that a man does secretly in the darkness of night will be clearly revealed in the daylight. Words uttered in privacy will become unexpectedly common conversation. Deed which we hide today in the corners of our lodgings will be shouted on every street tomorrow.
A madman is not less a musician than you or myself; only the instrument on which he plays is a little out of tune.
You cannot have youth and the knowledge of it at the same time.
Every man loves two women; the one is the creation of his imagination, and the other is not yet born.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.
Love which is not always springing is always dying.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"
Long ago there lived a Man who was crucified for being too loving and too lovable.
If you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud,
outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.
Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.
In truth we talk only to ourselves, but sometimes we talk loud enough that others may hear us.
Remembrance is a form of meeting.
The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.
How noble is the sad heart who would sing a joyous song with joyous hearts.
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
He who listens to truth is not less than he who utters truth.
Be grateful that you do not have to live down the renown of a father nor the wealth of an uncle.
Every man is the descendant of every king and every slave that ever lived.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Inspiration will always sing; inspiration will never explain.
A madman is not less a musician than you or myself; only the instrument on which he plays is a little out of tune.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.
You may judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself.
Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and your are the mirror.
I long for eternity because there I shall meet my unwritten poems and my unpainted pictures.
Follow your heart. Your heart is the right guide in everything big.
A traveller am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.
We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
If you would rise but a cubit above race and country and self you would indeed become godlike.
You pray in your distress and in your need;
would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy
and in your days of abundance.
There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes
their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought
reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too self-full to seek other than itself.
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
In truth we talk only to ourselves, but sometimes we talk loud enough that others may hear us.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears.
The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you.
Only the dumb envy the talkative.
Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
Generosity is not in giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is in giving me that which you need more than I do.
You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty,
yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy
you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind
with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to Heaven; it makes us feel that bodies are no more than prisons and that this world is only a place of exile.
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too self-full to seek other than itself.
Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.
If I accept the sunshine and warmth I must also accept the thunder and lightning.
The real in us is silent; the acquired is talkative.
Now let us play hide and seek. Should you hide in my heart it would not be difficult to find you. But should you hide behind your own shell, then it would be useless for anyone to seek you. A woman may veil her face with a smile.
The difference between the richest man and the poorest is but a day of hunger and an hour of thirst.
He is the true prince who finds his throne in the heart of the dervish.
We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays.
In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness:
and that longing is in all of you.
Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
The flowers of spring are winter's dreams related at the breakfast table of the angels.
You owe more than gold to him who serves you. Give him of your heart or serve him.
Love is the veil between lover and lover.
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
How stupid is he who would patch the hatred in his eyes with the smile of his lips.
You cannot consume beyond your appetite. The other half of the loaf belongs to the other person, and there should remain a little bread for the chance guest.
You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,
When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place,
let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
One thought will come to you at night which will elevate you to glory or lead you to asylum. One look from a woman's eye makes you the happiest man in the world. One word from a man's lips will make you rich or poor.
The bitterest thing in our today's sorrow is the memory of our yesterday's joy.
Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
No man can draw the line between necessities and luxuries. Only the angels can do that, and the angels are wise and wistful.
There is neither religion nor science beyond beauty.
For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.
And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge,
so must each one of you be alone in his
knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,
it is better that you should leave your work and
sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference,
you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,
your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,
you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.
If winter should say, "Spring is in my heart," who would believe winter?
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
The appearance of things changes according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
Long were you a dream in your mother's sleep, and then she woke to give you birth.
The germ of the race is in your mother's longing.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence,
as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow,"
and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
Love which is not always springing is always dying.
There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.
If you would rise but a cubit above race and country and self you would indeed become godlike.
Art is a step from nature toward the Infinite.
Every man is the descendant of every king and every slave that ever lived.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; is the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.
Even the most winged spirit cannot escape physical necessity.
It is the mind in us that yields to the laws made by us, but never the spirit in us.
Can a dead man remember the singing of a nightingale and the fragrance of a rose and the sigh of a brook? Can a prisoner who is heavily loaded with shackles follow the breeze of the dawn?
He who would understand a woman, or dissect genius, or solve the mystery of silence is the very man who would wake from a beautiful dream to sit at a breakfast table.
Said a tree to a man, "My roots are in the deep red earth, and I shall give you of my fruit."
And the man said to the tree, "How alike we are. My roots are also deep in the red earth. And the red earth gives you power to bestow upon me of your fruit, and the red earth teaches me to receive from you with thanksgiving."
The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.
The fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"
A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.
Said a hunted fox followed by twenty horsemen and a pack of twenty hounds, "Of course they will kill me. But how poor and how stupid they must be. Surely it would not be worth while for twenty foxes riding on twenty asses and accompanied by twenty wolves to chase and kill one man."
He who listens to truth is not less than he who utters truth.
What the soul knows is often unknown to the man who has a soul. We are infinitely more than we think.
Frogs may bellow louder than bulls, but they cannot drag the plough in the field not turn the wheel of the winepress, and of their skins you cannot make shoes.
You cannot have youth and the knowledge of it at the same time.
The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.
Perhaps time's definition of coal is the diamond.
Perhaps the sea's definition of a shell is the pearl.
Knowledge is life with wings.
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.
When you reach the heart of life you shall find beauty in all things, even in the eyes that are blind to beauty.
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
Great beauty captures me, but a beauty still greater frees me even from itself.
Let him who wipes his soiled hands with your garment take your garment. He may need it again; surely you would not.
A great singer is he who sings our silences.
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
Be grateful that you do not have to live down the renown of a father nor the wealth of an uncle.
Perhaps the sea's definition of a shell is the pearl.
We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth
that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice,
it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
You are indeed charitable when you give, and while giving, turn your face away so that you may not see the shyness of the receiver.
How stupid is he who would patch the hatred in his eyes with the smile of his lips.
The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.
If you do not understand your friend under all conditions you will never understand him.
When a man's hand touches the hand of a woman they both touch the heart of eternity.
Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
Beauty shines brighter in the heart of him who longs for it than in the eyes of him who sees it.
We often sing lullabies to our children that we ourselves may sleep.
A traveller am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.
the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
All those who have lived in the past live with us now. Surely none of us would be an ungracious host.
We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word "Mother," and the most beautiful call is the call of "My mother." it is a word full of hope and love, a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart. The mother is every thing -- she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly.
They say the nightingale pierces his bosom with a thorn when he sings his love song.
The song that lies silent in the heart of a mother sings upon the lips of her child.
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
You are truly a forgiver when you forgive murderers who never spill blood, thieves who never steal, and liars who utter no falsehood.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
We are all seeking the summit of the holy mountain; but shall not our road be shorter if we consider the past a chart and not a guide?
Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant.
He who would share your pleasure but not your pain shall lose the key to one of the seven gates of Paradise.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.
If you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud,
outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.
Generosity is not in giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is in giving me that which you need more than I do.
The difference between the richest man and the poorest is but a day of hunger and an hour of thirst.
Thinking is always the stumbling stone to poetry.
The bitterest thing in our today's sorrow is the memory of our yesterday's joy.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
Said a gracious wolf to a simple sheep, "Will you not honour our house with a visit?"
And the sheep answered, "We would have been honoured to visit your house if it were not in your stomach."
You cannot consume beyond your appetite. The other half of the loaf belongs to the other person, and there should remain a little bread for the chance guest.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears.
No longing remains unfulfilled.
What difference does it make, whether you live in a big city or in a community of homes ? The real life is within.
The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.
It is the mind in us that yields to the laws made by us, but never the spirit in us.
He who would share your pleasure but not your pain shall lose the key to one of the seven gates of Paradise.
Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; is the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
There is neither religion nor science beyond beauty.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, I am in the heart of God."
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you
is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment
which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.
Every seed is a longing.
Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.
Everything that a man does secretly in the darkness of night will be clearly revealed in the daylight. Words uttered in privacy will become unexpectedly common conversation. Deed which we hide today in the corners of our lodgings will be shouted on every street tomorrow.
A madman is not less a musician than you or myself; only the instrument on which he plays is a little out of tune.
You cannot have youth and the knowledge of it at the same time.
Every man loves two women; the one is the creation of his imagination, and the other is not yet born.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.
Love which is not always springing is always dying.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"
Long ago there lived a Man who was crucified for being too loving and too lovable.
If you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud,
outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.
Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.
In truth we talk only to ourselves, but sometimes we talk loud enough that others may hear us.
Remembrance is a form of meeting.
The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.
How noble is the sad heart who would sing a joyous song with joyous hearts.
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
He who listens to truth is not less than he who utters truth.
Be grateful that you do not have to live down the renown of a father nor the wealth of an uncle.
Every man is the descendant of every king and every slave that ever lived.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Inspiration will always sing; inspiration will never explain.
A madman is not less a musician than you or myself; only the instrument on which he plays is a little out of tune.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.
You may judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself.
Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and your are the mirror.
I long for eternity because there I shall meet my unwritten poems and my unpainted pictures.
Follow your heart. Your heart is the right guide in everything big.
A traveller am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.
We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
If you would rise but a cubit above race and country and self you would indeed become godlike.
You pray in your distress and in your need;
would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy
and in your days of abundance.
There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes
their naked selves and they would escape.
And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought
reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.
And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.
The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too self-full to seek other than itself.
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
In truth we talk only to ourselves, but sometimes we talk loud enough that others may hear us.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears.
The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you.
Only the dumb envy the talkative.
Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
Generosity is not in giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is in giving me that which you need more than I do.
You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty,
yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy
you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind
with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to Heaven; it makes us feel that bodies are no more than prisons and that this world is only a place of exile.
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too self-full to seek other than itself.
Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.
If I accept the sunshine and warmth I must also accept the thunder and lightning.
The real in us is silent; the acquired is talkative.
Now let us play hide and seek. Should you hide in my heart it would not be difficult to find you. But should you hide behind your own shell, then it would be useless for anyone to seek you. A woman may veil her face with a smile.
The difference between the richest man and the poorest is but a day of hunger and an hour of thirst.
He is the true prince who finds his throne in the heart of the dervish.
We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays.
In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness:
and that longing is in all of you.
Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
The flowers of spring are winter's dreams related at the breakfast table of the angels.
You owe more than gold to him who serves you. Give him of your heart or serve him.
Love is the veil between lover and lover.
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
How stupid is he who would patch the hatred in his eyes with the smile of his lips.
You cannot consume beyond your appetite. The other half of the loaf belongs to the other person, and there should remain a little bread for the chance guest.
You are good when you are fully awake in your speech,
When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place,
let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered
One thought will come to you at night which will elevate you to glory or lead you to asylum. One look from a woman's eye makes you the happiest man in the world. One word from a man's lips will make you rich or poor.
The bitterest thing in our today's sorrow is the memory of our yesterday's joy.
Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
No man can draw the line between necessities and luxuries. Only the angels can do that, and the angels are wise and wistful.
There is neither religion nor science beyond beauty.
For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.
And even as each one of you stands alone in God's knowledge,
so must each one of you be alone in his
knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,
it is better that you should leave your work and
sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference,
you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,
your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,
you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.
If winter should say, "Spring is in my heart," who would believe winter?
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
The appearance of things changes according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
Long were you a dream in your mother's sleep, and then she woke to give you birth.
The germ of the race is in your mother's longing.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence,
as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart,
and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow,"
and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
Love which is not always springing is always dying.
There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.
If you would rise but a cubit above race and country and self you would indeed become godlike.
Art is a step from nature toward the Infinite.
Every man is the descendant of every king and every slave that ever lived.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; is the second, then you are an oasis in a desert.
Even the most winged spirit cannot escape physical necessity.
It is the mind in us that yields to the laws made by us, but never the spirit in us.
Can a dead man remember the singing of a nightingale and the fragrance of a rose and the sigh of a brook? Can a prisoner who is heavily loaded with shackles follow the breeze of the dawn?
He who would understand a woman, or dissect genius, or solve the mystery of silence is the very man who would wake from a beautiful dream to sit at a breakfast table.
Said a tree to a man, "My roots are in the deep red earth, and I shall give you of my fruit."
And the man said to the tree, "How alike we are. My roots are also deep in the red earth. And the red earth gives you power to bestow upon me of your fruit, and the red earth teaches me to receive from you with thanksgiving."
The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.
The fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"
A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.
Said a hunted fox followed by twenty horsemen and a pack of twenty hounds, "Of course they will kill me. But how poor and how stupid they must be. Surely it would not be worth while for twenty foxes riding on twenty asses and accompanied by twenty wolves to chase and kill one man."
He who listens to truth is not less than he who utters truth.
What the soul knows is often unknown to the man who has a soul. We are infinitely more than we think.
Frogs may bellow louder than bulls, but they cannot drag the plough in the field not turn the wheel of the winepress, and of their skins you cannot make shoes.
You cannot have youth and the knowledge of it at the same time.
The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.
Perhaps time's definition of coal is the diamond.
Perhaps the sea's definition of a shell is the pearl.
Knowledge is life with wings.
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.
When you reach the heart of life you shall find beauty in all things, even in the eyes that are blind to beauty.
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
Great beauty captures me, but a beauty still greater frees me even from itself.
Let him who wipes his soiled hands with your garment take your garment. He may need it again; surely you would not.
A great singer is he who sings our silences.
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
Be grateful that you do not have to live down the renown of a father nor the wealth of an uncle.
Perhaps the sea's definition of a shell is the pearl.
We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays.
It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth
that you shall find abundance and be satisfied.
Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice,
it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
You are indeed charitable when you give, and while giving, turn your face away so that you may not see the shyness of the receiver.
How stupid is he who would patch the hatred in his eyes with the smile of his lips.
The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.
If you do not understand your friend under all conditions you will never understand him.
When a man's hand touches the hand of a woman they both touch the heart of eternity.
Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
Beauty shines brighter in the heart of him who longs for it than in the eyes of him who sees it.
We often sing lullabies to our children that we ourselves may sleep.
A traveller am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.
the fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
All those who have lived in the past live with us now. Surely none of us would be an ungracious host.
We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them.
You are good when you are one with yourself.
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word "Mother," and the most beautiful call is the call of "My mother." it is a word full of hope and love, a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart. The mother is every thing -- she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly.
They say the nightingale pierces his bosom with a thorn when he sings his love song.
The song that lies silent in the heart of a mother sings upon the lips of her child.
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
You are truly a forgiver when you forgive murderers who never spill blood, thieves who never steal, and liars who utter no falsehood.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
We are all seeking the summit of the holy mountain; but shall not our road be shorter if we consider the past a chart and not a guide?
Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant.
He who would share your pleasure but not your pain shall lose the key to one of the seven gates of Paradise.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.
If you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud,
outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.
Generosity is not in giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is in giving me that which you need more than I do.
The difference between the richest man and the poorest is but a day of hunger and an hour of thirst.
Thinking is always the stumbling stone to poetry.
The bitterest thing in our today's sorrow is the memory of our yesterday's joy.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
Said a gracious wolf to a simple sheep, "Will you not honour our house with a visit?"
And the sheep answered, "We would have been honoured to visit your house if it were not in your stomach."
You cannot consume beyond your appetite. The other half of the loaf belongs to the other person, and there should remain a little bread for the chance guest.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears.
