Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"
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Remembrance is a form of meeting.
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Do not the spirits who dwell in the ether envy man his pain?
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One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.
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Seven times have I despised my soul:
The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height.
The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled.
The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.
The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.
The fifth time when she forbore for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength.
The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.
And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise, and deemed it a virtue.
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When you long for blessings that you may not name, and when you grieve knowing not the cause, then indeed you are growing with all things that grow, and rising toward your greater self.
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My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.
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When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.
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The real in us is silent; the acquired is talkative.
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Every seed is a longing.
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Let us not be particular and sectional. The poet's mind and the scorpion's tail rise in glory from the same earth.
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Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.
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Inspiration will always sing; inspiration will never explain.
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We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.
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Your most radiant garment is of the other person's weaving;
You most savory meal is that which you eat at the other person's table;
Your most comfortable bed is in the other person's house.
Now tell me, how can you separate yourself from the other person?
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How shall my heart be unsealed unless it be broken?
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If it were not for your guests all houses would be graves.
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You will be quite friendly with your enemy when you both die.
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The only one who has been unjust to me is the one to whose brother I have been unjust.
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Oftentimes I have hated in self-defense; but if I were stronger I would not have used such a weapon.
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Only those beneath me can envy or hate me.
I have never been envied nor hated; I am above no one.
Only those above me can praise or belittle me.
I have never been praised nor belittled; I am below no one.
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The truly good is he who is one with all those who are deemed bad.
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Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigor than we do our rights.
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It is the honor of the murdered that he is not the murderer.
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They spread before us their riches of gold and silver, of ivory and ebony, and we spread before them our hearts and our spirits;
And yet they deem themselves the hosts and us the guests.
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The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
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You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge.
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The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.
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The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
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I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
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The silence of the envious is too noisy.
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Man is two men; one is awake in darkness, the other is asleep in light.
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In truth you owe naught to any man. You owe all to all men.
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Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
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Only when a juggler misses catching his ball does he appeal to me.
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Behold here is a paradox; the deep and high are nearer to one another than the mid-level to either.
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Should you sit upon a cloud you would not see the boundary line between one country and another, nor the boundary stone between a farm and a farm.
It is a pity you cannot sit upon a cloud.
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Every thought I have imprisoned in expression I must free by my deeds.
-- Khalil Gibran, Sand and Foam, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981 (37th printing), 1926.
