KAHLIL GIBRAN - QUOTATIONS

1. Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.

2. Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

3. A man can be free without being great, but no man can be great without being free.

4. Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.

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

6. Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.

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

8. You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept.

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

10. We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.

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

12. He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.

13. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

14. What the soul knows is often unknown to the man who has a soul. We are infinitely more than we think

15. By losing your goal, you have lost your way.

16. There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

17. All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

18. Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

19. If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.

20. Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.

21. The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.

22. Life without love is like a tree without blossom and fruit.

23. We are expression of earth, and of life - not separate individuals only.

24. Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.

25. The envious praises me unknowingly.

26. And think not you can guide the course of love. For love, if it finds you worthy, shall guide your course.

27. Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

28. If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.

29. To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.

30. Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigor than we do our rights.

31. What difference does it make, whether you live in a big city or in a community of homes ? The real life is within.

32. Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

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

34. Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.

35. How shall my heart be unsealed unless it be broken.

36. Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

37. Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

38. A true hermit goes to the wilderness to find - not to lose himself.

39. Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.

40. Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

41. Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

42. In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

43. Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds.

44. Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

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

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

47. Desire is half of life, indifference is half of death.

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

49. One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night .

50. We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

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

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

53. In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.

54. In the depth of my soul there is a wordless song.

55. Hell is not in torture; Hell is in an empty heart.

56. Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.

57. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

58. Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

59. You are blind and I am deaf and dumb, so let us touch hands and understand.

60. Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.

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

62. Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.

63. Knowledge is life with wings.

64. If I accept the sunshine and warmth I must also accept the thunder and lightning.

65. When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.

66. Birth and Death are the two noblest expressions of bravery.

67. What is poetry? An extension of vision - and music is an extension of hearing.

68. The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

69. The real in us is silent; the acquired is talkative.

70. Trust in dreams, for in them is the hidden gate to eternity.