“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” - Kahlil Gibran
“Your heart knows in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge. You would know in words that which you have always known in thought. You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams… And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.” - Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” - Kahlil Gibran
“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.” - Kahlil Gibran
“When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth…” - Kahlil Gibran ^quote5
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge” - Kahlil Gibran
“But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.” - Kahlil Gibran
“Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?” - Kahlil Gibran
“I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.” - Kahlil Gibran ^quote12
“And 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.” - Kahlil Gibran
“Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal. And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay? - Kahlil Gibran”
“And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage if words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly… And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words. In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.” - Kahlil Gibran
“If these be vague words, then seek not to clear them. Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end, and I fain would have you remember me as a beginning. Life, and all that lives, is conceived in the mist and not in the crystal. And who knows but a crystal is mist in decay?” - Kahlil Gibran
”If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sown the seed, and in what unremembered seasons? Empty and dark shall I raise my lantern, And the guardian of the night shall fill it with oil and he shall light it also” - Kahlil Gibran ^quote14
“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. And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.”
“But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”
“I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.”
“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 forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair”
“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”
“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”
“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.”
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.”