1. Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
2. Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
3. And think not you can guide the course of love. For love, if it finds you worthy, shall guide your course.
4. If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.
5. No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.
6. It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone … but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.
7. 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.
8. Love is trembling happiness.
9. When you love you should not think you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
10. Darkness may hide the trees and the flowers from the eyes but it cannot hide love from the soul.
11. 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.
Sayings by Kahlil Gibran
Excerpt from Wikipedia: Khalil Gibran (born Gibrān Khalīl Gibrān bin Mikhā’īl bin Sa’ad; Arabic جبران خليل جبران بن ميکائيل بن سعد), (January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer. Born in the town of Bsharri in modern-day Lebanon (then part of Ottoman Syria), as a young man he emigrated with his family to the United States where he studied art and began his literary career. He is chiefly known for his 1923 book The Prophet, a series of philosophical essays written in English prose. An early example of Inspirational fiction, the book sold well despite a cool critical reception, and became extremely popular in 1960s counterculture.
Sayings by Kahlil Gibran
1. A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
2. An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.
3. If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
4. You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
5. You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.
6. 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.
7. Yesterday is but today’s memory, tomorrow is today’s dream.
8. Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, that we may record our emptiness.
9. Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
10. The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
11. One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.
12. Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.
13. Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
14. 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.
15. I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to these teachers.
16. Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
17. The Reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says, but rather to what he does not say.
18. We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
19. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.
20. Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
21. To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.
22. To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
23. Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
24. Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
25. The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.
26. You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.
27. March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.
28. 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.
29. If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
30. One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.
31. Faith is an oasis in the heart which can never be reached by the caravan of thinking
32. They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.
33. The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
34. Work is love made visible. And if you can’t work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy.
35. You cannot laugh and be unkind at the same time.
36. You may chain my hands, you may shackle my feet; you may even throw me into a dark prison; but you shall not enslave my thinking, because it is free!
37. It’s well to give when asked, but it’s better to give unasked.
38. Do not limp before the lame, deeming it a kindness.
39. You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
40. And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart:
Your seeds shall live in my body,
And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,
And your fragrance shall be my breath,
And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.
Poems by Kahlil Gibran
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of
Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable
Love Letters in the Sand
Hearts united in pain and sorrow
will not be separated by joy and happiness.
Bonds that are woven in sadness
are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure.
Love that is washed by tears
will remain eternally pure and faithful.