Kahlil Gibran

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

In the sweetness of friendship; let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions.

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'

It is well to give when asked but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

In battling evil, excess is good; for he who is moderate in announcing the truth is presenting half-truth. He conceals the other half out of fear of the people's wrath.

If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

The significance of a man is not in what he attains, but rather what he longs to attain.

It is slavery to live in the mind unless it has become part of the body.

Yesterday is but today's memory, tomorrow is today's dream.

The lights of stars that were extinguished ages ago still reaches us. So it is with great men who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities.

They deem me mad for I will not sell my days for gold; I deem them mad for they think my days have a price.

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the final hour of separation.

The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose.

I am one of those who believe that spiritual progress is a rule of human life, but the approach to perfection is slow and painful. If a woman elevates herself in one respect and is retarded in another, it is because the rough trail that leads to the mountain peak is not free of ambushes of thieves and lairs of wolves.

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

You give little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

God made Truth with many doors to welcome every believer who knocks on them.

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

The lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping,For only the hand of God can contain your hearts.

The envier praises me unknowingly.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

You give but little when you give of your posessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

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.

Love is know the pain of too much tenderness.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?Verily, when good is hungry is seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

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 you are the mirror.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.

He who does not seek advice is a fool. His folly blinds him to Truth and makes him evil, stubborn, and a danger to his fellow men.

Every man loves two women;the one is the creation of his imagination and the other is not yet born.

Marriage is the golden ring in a chain, whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity.

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; Yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.

The deeper sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain.

Doubt is a feeling too lonely to know that faith is its twin.