Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

Gibran Khalil Gibran, usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist; he was also considered a philosopher, although he himself rejected the title. He is best known as the author of The Prophet, which was first published in the United States in 1923 and has since become one of the best-selling books of all time, having been translated into more than 100 languages.

Quotes

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.
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.
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.
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Marriage is the golden ring in a chain, whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping,
For only the hand of God can contain your hearts.
You give but little when you give of your posessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Love is know the pain of too much tenderness.
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
You give little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
God made Truth with many doors to welcome every believer who knocks on them.
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against passion and your appetite.
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 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.
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
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.
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.
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?