Khalil Gibran

The sorrowful spirit finds relaxation in solitude. It abhors people, as a wounded deer deserts the herd and lives in a cave until it is healed or dead.

I discovered the secret of the sea in meditation upon a dewdrop.

All work is empty save when there is love.

The ageless melody, unheard, heals; the healing vision, unseen, leads; the true leaders, immortal, know...

Say not, I have found the path of the soul Say rather, I have met the soul walking upon my path.

You would know the secret of death. But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heath of life? The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light. If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one. For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.

The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that your should seek with him hours to kill? Seek with him always hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. 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.

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labor a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born.

When the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Passionate love is a quenchless thirst.

A look which reveals inward stress adds more beauty to the face, no matter how much tragedy and pain it bespeaks; but the face which, in silence, does not announce hidden mysteries is not beautiful, regardless of the symmetry of its features.

Nature reaches out to us with welcoming arms, and bids us enjoy her beauty; but we dread her silence and rush into the crowded cities, there to huddle like sheep fleeing from a ferocious wolf.

When you have grasped a problem clearly, face it with resolution, for that is the way of the strong.

Perhaps a man may commit suicide in self-defense.

Like the ocean is your god-self; It remains for ever undefiled. And like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is your god-self; It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent. But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being. Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man, But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.

Let your best be for your friend.

The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.

Those to whom worshiping is a window, to open but also to shut, have not yet visited the house of their souls whose windows are open from dawn to dawn.