Kahlil Gibran
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"Khalil Gibran" (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese artist, poet, and writer.

Born in the town of Bsharri in the north of modern-day Lebanon (then part of Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Ottoman Empire), as a young man he immigrated with his family to the United States, where he studied art and began his literary career, writing in both English and Arabic. In the Arab world, Gibran is regarded as a literary and political rebel. His romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature, especially prose poetry, breaking away from the classical school. In Lebanon, he is still celebrated as a literary hero.

He is chiefly known in the English-speaking world for his 1923 book The Prophet (book)/The Prophet, an early example of inspirational fiction including a series of philosophical essays written in poetic English prose. The book sold well despite a cool critical reception, gaining popularity in the 1930s and again especially in the Counterculture of the 1960s/1960s counterculture. Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Laozi.

More Kahlil Gibran on Wikipedia.

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

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

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

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping, For only the hand of God can contain your hearts.

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

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

The lights of stars that were extinguished ages ago still reaches us. So it is with great men who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities.

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?

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

The deeper sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

They deem me mad for I will not sell my days for gold; I deem them mad for they think my days have a price.

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.

He who does not seek advice is a fool. His folly blinds him to Truth and makes him evil, stubborn, and a danger to his fellow men.

Love is know the pain of too much tenderness.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

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

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

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.

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

Marriage is the golden ring in a chain, whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity.

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

I am one of those who believe that spiritual progress is a rule of human life, but the approach to perfection is slow and painful. If a woman elevates herself in one respect and is retarded in another, it is because the rough trail that leads to the mountain peak is not free of ambushes of thieves and lairs of wolves.

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

Every man loves two women;the one is the creation of his imagination and the other is not yet born.

That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.

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

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

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.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions.

God made Truth with many doors to welcome every believer who knocks on them. .

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

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily, when good is hungry is seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

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

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

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.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

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