Quotes By Author: Khalil Gibran

“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.”

“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?Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.And when you have reached the mountaintop,then you shall begin to climb.And when the earth shal claim your limbs,then shall you truly dance.”

“On PleasurePleasure is a freedom-song,But it is not freedom.It is the blossoming of your desires,But it is not their fruit.It is a depth calling unto a height,But it is not the deep nor the high.It is the caged taking wing,But it is not space encompassed.Aye, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.Some of your youth seek pleasure as if it were all, and they are judgedand rebuked.I would not judge nor rebuke them. I would have them seek.For they shall find pleasure, but not her alone;Seven are her sisters, and the least of them is more beautiful thanpleasure.Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for rootsand found a treasure?And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongscommitted in drunkenness.But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they wouldthe harvest of a summer.Yet if it comforts them to regret, let them be comforted.And there are among you those who are neither young to seek nor oldto remember;And in their fear of seeking and remembering they shun all pleasures,lest they neglect the spirit or offend against it.But even in their foregoing is their pleasure.And thus they too find a treasure though they dig for roots with quiveringhands.But tell me, who is he that can offend the spirit?Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly thestars?And shall your flame or your smoke burden the wind?Think you the spirit is a still pool which you can trouble with a staff?Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire inthe recesses of your being.Who knows but that which seems omitted today, waits for tomorrow?Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will notbe deceived.And your body is the harp of your soul,And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.And now you ask in your heart, “How shall we distinguish that whichis good in pleasure from that which is not good?”Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is thepleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasureis a need and an ecstasy.”

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

“I am forever walking upon these shores,Betwixt the sand and the foam,The high tide will erase my foot prints,And the wind will blow away the foam,But the sea and the shore will remain forever.”

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.”

“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”

“I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.”

“When you part from your friend, you grieve not;For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, asthe mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.”

“It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to understand it.”

“For Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended,is a flame that burns to its own destruction.”

“He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.”

“He who is more mindful of one, loses the love and the faith of both.”

“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”

“Darkness may hide the treesand the flowers from the eyesbut it cannot hidelove from the soul.”