SH-T-23
E
EARTH
The earth that opens wide her mouth to swallow man and his works is the redeemer of our souls from bondage to our bodies.
WM-ST-79
EAST AND WEST
The West is not higher than the East, nor is the West lower than the East, and the difference that stands between the two is not greater than the difference between the tiger and the lion. There is a just and perfect law that I have found behind the exterior of society, which equalizes misery, prosperity, and ignorance; it does not prefer one nation to another, nor does it oppress one tribe in order to enrich another.
SH-T-25
EDIFICE
What man is capable of leaving an edifice on whose construction he has spent all his life, even though that edifice is his own prison? It is difficult to get rid of it in one day.
SP-ST-83
EQUALITY
One hour devoted to mourning and lamenting the
Stolen equality of the weak is nobler than a
Century filled with greed and usurpation.
TL-T-412
ETERNITY
Each thing that exists remains forever, and the very existence of existence is proof of its eternity. But without that realization, which is the knowledge of perfect being, man would never know whether there was existence or non-existence. If eternal existence is altered, then it must become more beautiful; and if it disappears, it must return with more sublime image; and if it sleeps, it must dream of a better awakening, for it is ever greater upon its rebirth.
SH-T-143
Only those return to Eternity
Who on earth seek out Eternity.
TL-T-410
EVOLUTION
The law of evolution has a severe and oppressive countenance and those of limited or fearful mind dread it; but its principles are just, and those who study them become enlightened. Through its Reason men are raised above themselves and can approach the sublime.
TM-ST-99
EXCESS
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.
TM-ST-96
I will not be surprised if the “thinkers” say of me, “He is a man of excess who looks upon life’s seamy side and reports nothing but gloom and lamentation.”
TM-ST-95
EXILE
He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.
SR-T-224
EYE
I feel pity toward those who admit of the eternity of the elements of which the eye is made, but at the same time doubt the eternity of the various objects of sight which employ the eye as a medium.
SH-T-144
Man’s eye is a magnifier; it shows him the earth much larger than it is.
MS-71
F
FACE
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. The cup does not entice our lips unless the wine’s color is seen through the transparent crystal.
BW-ST-67
FAITH
God has made many doors opening into truth which He opens to all who knock upon them with hands of faith.
SH-T-138
FAME
There is something in our life which is nobler and more supreme than fame; and this something is the great deed that invokes fame.
SP-ST-32
FATE
Circumstances drive us on
In narrow paths by Kismet hewn.
For Fate has ways we cannot change,
While weakness preys upon our Will;
We bolster with excuse the self,
And help that Fate ourselves to kill.
P-74
Life takes us up and bears us from one place to another; Fate moves us from one point to another. And we, caught up between these twain, hear dreadful voices and see only that which stands as a hindrance and obstacle in our path.
WM-ST-46
FEAR OF DEATH
Fear of death is a delusion
Harbored in the breast of sages;
He who lives a single Springtime
Is like one who lives for ages.
P-71
FERTILITY
The body is a womb to soul
In which it dwells until full term,
When it ascends once more to soar,
While womb again recedes to germ.
P-67
FIRST LOVE
Every young man remembers his first love and tries to recapture that strange hour, the memory of which changes his deepest feeling and makes him so happy in spite of all the bitterness of its mystery.
BW-ST-12
FLOWERS
The flowers of the field are the children of sun’s affection and nature’s love; and the children of men are the flowers of love and compassion.
BW-ST-122
FOLLY
The fool sees naught but folly; and the madman only madness. Yesterday I asked a foolish man to count the fools among us. He laughed and said, “This is too hard a thing to do, and it will take too long. Were it not better to count only the wise?”
WM-ST-55
I once heard a learned man say, “Every evil has its remedy, except folly. To reprimand an obstinate fool or to preach to a dolt is like writing upon the water. Christ healed the blind, the halt, the palsied, and the leprous. But the fool He could not cure.”
WM-ST-56
FORBIDDEN
When you behold a man turning aside from
Things forbidden that bring
Abysmal crime to self, look
Upon him with eyes of love, for
He is a preserver of God in him.
T-372
FREEDOM
I love freedom, and my love for true
Freedom grew with my growing knowledge
Of the people’s surrender to slavery
And oppression and tyranny, and of
Their submission to the horrible idols
Erected by the past ages and polished
By the parched lips of the slaves.
But I love those slaves with my love
For freedom, for they blindly kissed
The jaws of ferocious beasts in calm
And blissful unawareness, feeling not
The venom of the smiling vipers, and
Unknowingly digging their graves with
Their own fingers.
SH-T-100
Dying for Freedom is nobler than living in
The shadow of weak submission, for
He who embraces death with the sword
Of Truth in his hand will eternalize
With the Eternity of Truth, for Life
Is weaker than Death and Death is
Weaker than Truth.
SH-T-342
The free on earth builds of his strife
A prison for his own duress,
When he is freed from his own kin,
Is slave to thought and love’s caress.
P-55
Life without Freedom is like a body without a soul, and Freedom without Thought is like a confused spirit…. Life, Freedom, and Thought are three-in-one, and are everlasting and never pass away.
TM-ST-62
Freedom bids us to her table where we may partake of her savory food and rich wine; but when we sit down at her board, we eat ravenously and glut ourselves.
WM-ST-47
You may chain my hands and shackle my feet; you may even throw me into a dark prison, but you shall not enslave my thinking because it is free.
S
FRIENDSHIP
Friendship with the ignorant is as foolish as arguing with a drunkard.
WM-ST-62
G
GENTLENESS
The gentleness of some is like
A polished shell with silky feel,
Lacking the precious pearl within
Oblivious of the brother’s weal.
When you shall meet one who is strong
And gentle too, pray feast your eyes;
For he is glorious to behold,
The blind can see his qualities.
P-59
GIANTS
We live in an era whose humblest men are becoming greater than the greatest men of preceding ages. What once preoccupied our minds is now of no consequence. The veil of indifference covers it. The beautiful dreams that once hovered in our consciousness have been dispersed like mist. In their place are giants moving like tempests, raging like seas, breathing like volcanoes.
What destiny will the giants bring the world at the end of their struggles? …
What will be the destiny of your country and mine? Which giant shall seize the mountains and valleys that produced us and reared us and made us men and women before the face of the sun? …
Which one of you people does not ponder day and night on the fate of the world under the rule of the giants intoxicated with the tears of widows and orphans?
TM-ST-97
GLORY
One hour devoted to the pursuit of Beauty
And Love is worth a full century of glory
Given by the frightened weak to the strong.
TL-T-411
I have seen you, my brother, sitting upon the throne of glory, and around you stood your people acclaiming your majesty, and singing praises of your great deeds, extolling your wisdom, and gazing upon you as though in the presence of a prophet, their spirits exulting even to the canopy of heaven.
And as you gazed upon your subjects, I saw in your face the marks of happiness and power and triumph, as if you were the soul of their body.
But when I looked again, behold I found you alone in your loneliness, standing by the side of your throne, an exile stretching his hand in every direction, as if pleading for mercy and kindness from invisible ghosts—begging for shelter, even such as has naught in it but warmth and friendliness.
WM-ST-42
GOD
Man has worshipped his own self since the beginning, calling that self by appropriate titles, until now, when he employs the word “God” to mean that same self.
SH-T-391
Most religions speak of God in the masculine gender. To me He is as much a mother as He is a Father. He is both the father and the mother in one; and Woman is the God-Mother. The God-Father may be reached through the mind or the imagination. But the God-Mother can be reached through the heart only—through love. And Love is that holy wine which the gods distill from their hearts and pour into the hearts of men. Those only taste it pure and divine whose hearts have been cleansed of all the animal lusts. For clean hearts to be drunk with love is to be drunk with God. Those, on the other hand, who drink it mixed with the wines of earthly passions taste but the orgies of devils in Hell.
KG-P-94
It were wiser to speak less of God, Whom we cannot understand, and more of each other, whom we may understand. Yet I would have you know that we are the breath and the fragrance of God. We are God, in leaf, in flower, and oftentimes in fruit.
MS-43
GOLD
Gold leads into gold, then into restlessness, and finally into crushing misery.
TL-T-403
The life that the rich man spends in heaping up gold is in truth like the life of the worms in the grave. It is a sign of fear.
WM-ST-65
GOOD
The good in man should freely flow,
As evil lives beyond the grave;
While Time with fingers moves the pawns
Awhile, then breaks the knight and knave.
P-41
GOVERNOR
Are you a governor looking down on those you govern, never stirring abroad except to rifle their pockets or to exploit them for your own profit? If so, you are like tares upon the threshing floor of the nation.
Are you a devoted servant who loves the people and is ever watchful over their welfare, and zealous for their success? If so, you are a blessing in the granaries of the land.
WM-ST-35
H
HANDS
How small is the life of the person who places his hands between his face and the world, seeing naught but the narrow lines of his hands!
SH-T-150
HAPPINESS
I sought happiness in my solitude, and
As I drew close to her I heard my soul
Whisper into my heart, saying, “The
Happiness you seek is a virgin, born
And reared in the depths of each heart,
And she emerges not from her birthplace.”
And when I opened my heart to find her,
I discovered in its domain only her
Mirror and her cradle and her raiment,
And happiness was not there.
SH-T-101
Happiness is a myth we seek,
If manifested surely irks;
Like river speeding to the plain,
On its arrival slows and murks.
For man is happy only in
His aspiration to the heights;
When he attains his goal, he cools
And longs for other distant flights.
P-57
Happiness on earth is but a fleet,
Passing ghost, which man craves
At any cost in gold or time. And
When the phantom becomes the
Reality, man soon wearies of it.
T-371
HARDSHIP
Braving obstacles and hardships is nobler than retreat to tranquility. The butterfly that hovers around the lamp until it dies is more admirable than the mole that lives in a dark tunnel.
BW-ST-89
HATE
I use hate as a weapon to defend myself; had I been strong, I would never have needed that kind of weapon.
MS-72
HEAVEN
The angels keep count of every tear shed by Sorrow; and they bring to the ears of the spirits hovering in the heavens of the Infinite each song of Joy wrought from our affections.
There, in the world to come, we shall see and feel all the vibrations of our feelings and the motions of our hearts. We shall understand the meaning of the divinity within us, whom we contemn because we are prompted by Despair.
WM-ST-32
HELL
Hell is not in torture;
Hell is in an empty heart.
MS-74
HERD
Say not, “There goes a learned man”
Nor, “There a chieftain dignified.”
The best of men are in the herd,
And heed the shepherd as their guide.
P-41
HONORS
Honors are but false delusions
Like the froth upon the wave.
Should the almond spray its blossoms
On the turf around its feet,
Never will it claim a lordship,
Nor disdain the grass to greet.
P-55
HOPE
Hope is found not in the forest,
Nor the wild portray despair;
Why should forest long for portions
When the ALL is centered there?
Should one search the forest hopeful,
When all nature is the Aim?
For to hope is but an ailment,
So are station, wealth and fame.
P-58
HUMANITY
Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that humanity is standing amidst ruins, hiding its nakedness behind tattered rags, shedding tears upon hollow cheeks, and calling for its children with pitiful voice. But the children are busy singing their clan’s anthem; they are busy sharpening the swords and cannot hear the cry of their mothers.
Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that Supre
me Being preaches love and good-will. But the people ridicule such teachings. The Nazarene Jesus listened, and crucifixion was his lot; Socrates heard the voice and followed it, and he too fell victim in body. The followers of The Nazarene and Socrates are the followers of Deity, and since people will not kill them, they deride them, saying, “Ridicule is more bitter than killing.”
TL-T-5
My soul preached to me and showed me that I am neither more than the pygmy, nor less than the giant.
Ere my soul preached to me, I looked upon humanity as two men: one weak, whom I pitied, and the other strong, whom I followed or resisted in defiance.
But now I have learned that I was as both are and made from the same elements. My origin is their origin, my conscience is their conscience, my contention is their contention, and my pilgrimage is their pilgrimage.
If they sin, I am also a sinner. If they do well, I take pride in their well-doing. If they rise, I rise with them. If they stay inert, I share their slothfulness.
TM-ST-31
HUNGER
A hungry man in a desert will not refuse to eat dry bread if Heaven does not shower him with manna and quails.
BW-ST-40
HUSBAND
Are you a husband who regards the wrongs he has committed as lawful, but those of his wife as unlawful? If so, you are like those extinct savages who lived in caves and covered their nakedness with hides.
Or are you a faithful companion, whose wife is ever at his side, sharing his every thought, rapture, and victory? If so, you are as one who at dawn walks at the head of a nation toward the high noon of justice, reason and wisdom.
WM-ST-35
I
IDEAS
How blind is the one who fancies and plans a matter in all true form and angles, and when he cannot prove it completely with superficial measurement and word proofs, believes that his idea and imagination were empty objects! But if he contemplates with sincerity and meditates upon these happenings, he will understand with conviction that his idea is as much a reality as is the bird of the sky, but that it is not yet crystallized, and that the idea is a segment of knowledge that cannot be proved with figures and words, for it is too high and too spacious to be imprisoned at that moment; too deeply imbedded in the spiritual to submit yet to the real.
SH-T-148
Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today, made by past generations, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman. The revolutions that shed so much blood and turned men’s minds toward liberty were the idea of one man who lived in the midst of thousands of men. The devastating wars which destroyed empires were a thought that existed in the mind of an individual. The supreme teachings that changed the course of humanity were the ideas of a man whose genius separated him from his environment. A single thought built the Pyramids, founded the glory of Islam, and caused the burning of the library at Alexandria.
Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran Page 57