YOUR THOUGHT AND MINE

Written by Gibran Khalil

Your thought is a tree rooted deep in the soil of tradition and whose branches grow in the power of continuity.

My thought is a cloud moving in the space. It turns into drops which, as they fall, form a brook that sings its way into the sea. Then it rises as vapour into the sky.

Your thought is a fortress that neither gale nor the lightning can shake.

My thought is a tender leaf that sways in every direction and finds pleasure in its swaying.

Your thought is an ancient dogma that cannot change you nor can you change it.

My thought is new, and it tests me and I test it morn and eve.

You have your thought and I have mine.

Your thought allows you to believe in the unequal contest of the strong against the weak, and in the tricking of the simple by the subtle ones.

My thought creates in me the desire to till the earth with my hoe, and harvest the crops with my sickle, and build my home with stones and mortar, and weave my raiment with woollen and linen threads.

Your thought urges you to marry wealth and notability.

Mine commends self-reliance.

Your thought advocates fame and show.

Mine counsels me and implores me to cast aside notoriety and treat it like a grain of sand cast upon the shore of eternity.

Your thought instils in your heart arrogance and superiority.

Mine plants within me love for peace and the desire for independence.

Your thought begets dreams of palaces with furniture of sandalwood studded with jewels, and beds made of twisted silk threads.

My thought speaks softly in my ears, “Be clean in body and spirit even if you have nowhere to lay your head.”

Your thought makes you aspire to titles and offices.

Mine exhorts me to humble service.

You have your thought and I have mine.

Your thought is social science, a religious and political dictionary.

Mine is simple axiom.

Your thought speaks of the beautiful woman, the ugly, the virtuous, the prostitute, the intelligent, and the stupid.

Mine sees in every woman a mother, a sister, or a daughter of every man.

The subjects of your thought are thieves, criminals, and assassins.

Mine declares that thieves are the creatures of monopoly, criminals are the offspring of tyrants, and assassins are akin to the slain.

Your thought describes laws, courts, judges, punishments.

Mine explains that when man makes a law, he either violates it or obeys it. If there is a basic law, we are all one before it. He who disdains the mean is himself mean. He who vaunts his scorn of the sinful vaunts his disdain of all humanity.

Your thought concerns the skilled, the artist, the intellectual, the philosopher, the priest.

Mine speaks of the loving and the affectionate, the sincere, the honest, the forthright, the kindly, and the martyr.

Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.

In my thought there is only one universal religion, whose varied paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being.

In your thought there are the rich, the poor, and the beggared.

My thought holds that there are no riches but life; that we are all beggars, and no benefactor exists save life herself.

You have your thought and I have mine.

According to your thought, the greatness of nations lies in their politics, their parties, their conferences, their alliances and treaties.

But mine proclaims that the importance of nations lies in work – work in the field, work in the vineyards, work with the loom, work in the tannery, work in the quarry, work in the timberyard, work in the office and in the press.

Your thought holds that the glory of the nations is in their heroes. It sings the praises of Rameses, Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, and Napoleon.

But mine claims that the real heroes are Confucius, Lao-Tse, Socrates, Plato, Abi Taleb, El Gazali, Jalal Ed-din-el Roumy, Copernicus, and Pasteur.

Your thought sees power in armies, cannons, battleships, submarines, aeroplanes, and poison gas.

But mine asserts that power lies in reason, resolution, and truth. No matter how long the tyrant endures, he will be the loser at the end.

Your thought differentiates between pragmatist and idealist, between the part and the whole, between the mystic and materialist.

Mine realizes that life is one and its weights, measures and tables do not coincide with your weights, measures and tables. He whom you suppose an idealist may be a practical man.

You have your thought and I have mine.

Your thought is interested in ruins and museums, mummies and petrified objects.

But mine hovers in the ever-renewed haze and clouds.

Your thought is enthroned on skulls. Since you take pride in it, you glorify it too.

My thought wanders in the obscure and distant valleys.

Your thought trumpets while you dance.

Mine prefers the anguish of death to your music and dancing.

Your thought is the thought of gossip and false pleasure.

Mine is the thought of him who is lost in his own country, of the alien in his own nation, of the solitary among his kinfolk and friends.

You have your thought and I have mine.

Source:

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THE FORERUNNER

by Khalil Gibran

We are the fields and the ploughmen, the gatherers and the gathered. [The Forerunner]

And always shall we be the beginning. [The Forerunner]

The bad omen of one is the good omen of another. [The Lion's Daughter]

Only the weak are sacrificed to the gods. [The Lion's Daughter]

Only a slave restores a crown that has fallen. [The Lion's Daughter]

It is true he no longer believes in me. But he went away much comforted. [The Saint]

Pity thou canst not sing. Pity, pity, my wise one, thou canst not fly. [The Scholar and the Poet]

What proof have you of other lives in other seas? [Other Seas]

Love humiliated in its nakedness is greater than love that seeks triumph in disguise. [The Last Watch]

He who renounces a kingdom must needs be greater than a kingdom. [The King-Hermit]

Said a sheet of snow-white paper, "Pure was I created, and pure will I remain for ever. I would rather be burnt and turn to white ashes than suffer darkness to touch me or the unclean to come near me." The ink-bottle heard what the paper was saying, and it laughed in its dark heart; but it never dared to approach her. And the multicoloured pencils heard her also, and they too never came near her. And the snow-white sheet of paper did remain pure and chaste for ever, pure and chaste -- and empty. [A Sheet of Snow-White Paper]

THE NEW FRONTIER

Penulis: Khalil Gibran

“… two challenging ideas: old and new … two men: one of the past and one of the future. Which one are you?”

“Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in a desert …”

“… two processions: One procession is of old people … The other is a procession of young men … I tell you that the children of yesteryears are walking in the funeral of the era that they created for themselves. They are pulling a rotted rope that might break soon and cause them to drop into a forgotten abyss … But the children of tomorrow are the ones called by life, and they follow it with steady steps and heads high, they are the dawn of new frontiers, no smoke will veil their eyes and no jingle of chains will drown their voices. They are few in number, but the difference is as between a grain of wheat and a stack of hay. No one knows them but they know each other, they are like the summits, which can see and hear each other –not like caves, which cannot hear or see. They are the seed dropped by the hand of God in the field, breaking through its pod and waving its sapling leaves before the face of the sun. It shall grow into a mighty tree, its root in the heart of the earth and its branches high in the sky."

SAND AND FOAM

Penulis: Khalil Gibran

I am forever walking upon these shores, 

Betwixt the sand and the foam, 

The high tide will erase my foot-prints, 

And the wind will blow away the foam, 

But the sea and the shore will remain Forever. 

“Who are you?”

Remembrance is a form of meeting. Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.

My house says to me, “Do not leave me, for here dwells your past.” And the road says to me, “Come and follow me, for I am your future.” And I say to both my house and the road, “I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things.”

There is a space between man’s imagination and man’s attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.

You are blind and I am deaf and dumb, so let us touch hands and understand.

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

Our mind is a sponge; our heart is a stream.

The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in 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.

A truth is to be known always, to be uttered sometimes.

Every seed is a longing.

It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to understand it.

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.

Poetry is not an opinion expressed. It is a song that rises from a bleeding wound or a smiling mouth.

Words are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness.

A poet is a dethroned king sitting among the ashes of his palace trying to fashion an image out of the ashes.

“Yes, death is always the revealer.”

If you sing of beauty though alone in the heart of the desert you will have an audience.

Poetry is wisdom that enchants the heart. Wisdom is poetry that sings in the mind.

Inspiration will always sing; inspiration will never explain.

A great singer is he who sings our silences.

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.

Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.

Love is the veil between lover and lover.

Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.

Love is a word of light, written by a hand of light, upon a page of light.

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. If you do not understand your friend under all conditions you will never understand him.

How shall my heart be unsealed unless it be broken? Only great sorrow or great joy can reveal your truth.

You cannot consume beyond your appetite.

Generosity is not in giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is in giving me that which you need more than I do. You are indeed charitable when you give, and while giving, turn your face away so that you may not see the shyness of the receiver.

We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays.

If your heart is a volcano how shall you expect flowers to bloom in your hands?

You may judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself. Tell me now, who among us is guilty and who is unguilty?

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.

When you reach the heart of life you will find yourself not higher than the felon, and not lower than the prophet.

If the other person laughs at you, you can pity him; but if you laugh at him you may never forgive yourself. If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember. In truth the other person is your most sensitive self given another body.

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.

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge.

I would not listen to a conqueror preaching to the conquered.

Strife in nature is but disorder longing for order.

A scientist without imagination is a butcher with dull knives and out-worn scales.

In truth we talk only to ourselves, but sometimes we talk loud enough that others may hear us.

Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light. A root is a flower that disdains fame.

There is neither religion nor science beyond beauty.

The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.

When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.

The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.

Birth and death are the two noblest expressions of bravery.

Man is two men; one is awake in darkness, the other is asleep in light.

There lies a green field between the scholar and the poet; should the scholar cross it he becomes a wise man; should the poet cross it, he becomes a prophet.

“Wisdom! Wisdom for sale!” Poor philosophers! They must needs sell their heads to feed their hearts.

“A bird and a feather in the bush is worth more than ten birds in the hand.”

There are only two elements here, beauty and truth; beauty in the hearts of lovers, and truth in the arms of the tillers of the soil.

Only those with secrets in their hearts could divine the secrets in our hearts.

He who would share your pleasure but not your pain shall lose the key to one of the seven gates of Paradise.

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

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

Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.

It is stupid to play a role with the night and the day. They would both laugh at you.

Love which is not always springing is always dying.

A great man has two hearts; one bleeds and the other forbears.

There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.

It is indeed misery if I stretch an empty hand to men and receive nothing; but it is hopelessness if I stretch a full hand and find none to receive.

I long for eternity because there I shall meet my unwritten poems and my unpainted pictures. Art is a step from nature toward the Infinite. A work of art is a mist carved into an image. Even the hands that make crowns of thorns are better than idle hands.

Our most sacred tears never seek our eyes.

Every man is the descendant of every king and every slave that ever lived.

Every thought I have imprisoned in expression I must free by my deeds.

THE PROPHET

Penulis: Khalil Gibran

The Coming of the Ship

“How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.”

“Shall the day of parting be the day of gathering? And shall it be said that my eve was in truth my dawn?”

“Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”

Love

“When love beckons to you, follow him … And when he speaks to you believe in him …”

“Love is sufficient unto love.”

“When you love you should not say, ‘God is in my heart’, but rather, ‘I am in the heart of God’.”

“Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.”

Marriage

“You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore.”

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”

Children

“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 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 not 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.”

Giving

“It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”

“And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.”

“For in truth it is life that gives unto life –while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.”

Eating and Drinking

“But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench you thirst, let it then be an act of worship.”

Work

“Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born. And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, and to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.”

“And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, and all urge is blind save when there is knowledge. And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love; and when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.”

And what is it to work with love? “It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit.”

“Work is love made visible.”

Joy and Sorrow

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.”

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

“Some of you say, ‘Joy is greater than sorrow’, and others say, ‘Nay, sorrow is the greater’. But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and you joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.”

Houses

“Your house is your larger body.”

“Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.”

“You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.”

Clothes

“Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.”

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

Buying and Selling

“And before you leave the market-place, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.”

Crime and Punishment

“And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the wrongdoer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.”

“You are the way and the wayfarers.”

“You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked; for they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.”

“And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light? Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self. And that the cornerstone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.”

Laws

“You delight in laying down laws, yet you delight more in breaking them. Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter. But while you build your sand-towers the ocean brings more sand to the shore, and when you destroy them the ocean laughs with you. Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.”

Freedom

“If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead. You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them. And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.”

Reason and Passion

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

“Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.”

“… then let your heart say in silence, ‘God rests in reason’ … then let your heart say in awe, ‘God moves in passion’. And since you are a breath in God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.”

Pain

“Much of your pain is self-chosen.”

Self-Knowledge

“For self is a sea boundless and measureless. Say not, ‘I have found the truth’, but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’ Say not, ‘I have found the path of the soul.’ Say rather, ‘I have met the soul walking upon my path.’ For the soul walks upon all paths.”

Teaching

“The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind … For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.”

Friendship

“When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the ‘nay’ in your own mind, nor do you withhold the ‘ay’. And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; for without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed … Seek him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.”

Talking

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; and when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.”

Time

“Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.”

“Let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.”

Good and Evil

“Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, ‘Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance’. For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.”

Prayer

“It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.”

Pleasure

“Pleasure is a freedom-song, but it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires, but it is not their fruit.”

“Your body is the harp of your soul.”

“Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, but it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, and to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, and to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.”

Beauty

“Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy … a heart inflamed and a soul enchanted … an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears … 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.”

Religion

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

“And if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in tress.”

Death

“If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life; for life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond.”

The Farewell

“I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into emptiness; and if this day is not a fulfillment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day.”

“How can one be indeed near unless he be far?”

“Patient, over patient, is the captain of my ship.”

“A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.”

THE MADMAN

Penulis: Khalil Gibran

“I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us, enslave something in us.” [How I Became a Madman]

“My friend, I am not what I seem … I am mad. But I mask my madness. I would be mad alone … My path is not thy path, yet together we walk, hand in hand.” [My Friend]

“That which raineth for prayer and faith and supplication is not mice but bones.” [The Wise Dog]

“I am the do-nothing self, the one who sits in the dumb, empty nowhere and nowhen, when you are busy recreating life.” [The Seven Selves]

“And justice was satisfied.” [War]

“A mouse will do.” [The Fox]

“The king is mad … Surely we cannot be rules by a mad king. We must dethrone him.” [The Wise King]

“Until all were speaking, I could distinguish nothing for the many voices. And so I moved that very day into the heart of a quince, where the seeds are few and almost silent.” [The Pomegranate]

“Good morrow to thee, brother prisoner.” [The Two Cages]

“My friends, we are standing now on the nose of the Supreme Ant, the mighty and infinite Ant, whose body is so great that we cannot see it, whose shadow is so vast that we cannot trace it, whose voice is so loud that we cannot her it; and He is omnipresent.” [The Three Ants]

“Of all those who come here to bury, you alone I like … Because, they come weeping and go weeping –you only come laughing and go laughing.” [The Grave-Digger]

“Good day to you, brother.” [The Good God and the Evil God]

“Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword an shield / In your eyes I have read / That to be enthroned is to be enslaved / And to be understood is to be leveled down / And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness / And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed … Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage / You and I shall laugh together with the storm / And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us / And we shall stand in the sun with a will / And we shall be dangerous.” [Defeat]

“Yea, we are twin brothers, O, Night; for thou revealest space and I reveal my soul.” [Night and the Madman]

“Let us go hence for there is no lonely, hidden place where we can bathe. I would not have this wind lift my golden hair, or bare my white bosom in this air, or let the light disclose my scared nakedness.” [The Greater Sea]

The blind man from his birth placed his hand upon his breast: “I am an astronomer. I watch all these suns and moons and stars.” [The Astronomer]

Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange. Nay, it is deeper than my sister’s depth and stronger than my brother’s strength, and stranger than the strangeness of my madness … Upon whom I call in my sleep I know not.” [The Great Longing]

“O these autumn leaves! They make such a noise! They scatter all my winter dreams.” [Said a Blade of Grass]

“Something must be the matter with the Eye.” [The Eye]

“See, there lies the man whose Sorrow is dead.” [When My Sorrow was Born]

“And now I only remember my dead Joy in remembering my dead Sorrow. But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs in the wind and then is heard no more.” [And When My Joy was Born]

“It is a perfect world, a world of consummate excellence, a world of supreme wonders, the ripest fruit in God’s garden, the master-thought of the universe. But why should I be here, O God, I a green seed of unfulfilled passion, a mad tempest that seeketh neither east nor west, a bewildered fragment from a burnt planet? Why am I here, O God of lost souls, thou who art lost amongst the gods?” [The Perfect World]

THE BROKEN WINGS

Novelis: Khalil Gibran

Forward

“Selma karamy was the one who taught me to worship beauty by the example of her own beauty and revealed to me the secret of love by her affection; she was the one who first sang to me the poetry of real life. 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. In every young man’s life there is a ‘Selma’ …”

Silent Sorrow

“The sensitive boy who feels much and knows little is the most unfortunate creature under the sun.”

“I saw the angels of heaven looking at me through the eyes of a beautiful woman. I also saw the devils of hell raging in the heart of an evil man. He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection.”

The Hand of Destiny

“He lives spiritually in the past because the present passes swiftly, and the future seems to him an approach to the oblivion of the grave.”

Entrance to the Shrine

“Selma is very sentimental. She sees everything through the eyes of the spirit.”

“Real beauty lies in the spiritual accord that is called love which can exist between a man and a woman.”

“Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.”

The White Torch

“She became a book whose pages I could understand and whose praises I could sing, but which I could never finish reading.”

“The sorrowful spirit finds rest when united with a similar one.”

“Love that is cleansed by tears will remain externally pure and beautiful.”

The Tempest

“… speech is not the only means of understanding between two souls. It is not the syllables that come from the lips and tongues that bring hearts together. There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together. Silence separates us from ourselves, makes us sail the firmament of spirit, and brings us closer to Heaven; it makes us feel that bodies are no more than prisons and that this world is only a place of exile.”

“If darkness hides the trees and flowers from our eyes, it will not hide love from our hearts.”

“One look from a woman’s eye makes you the happiest man in the world.”

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions … the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.”

“Now I know that there is something higher than heaven and deeper than the ocean and stranger than life and death and time. I know now what I did not know before.”

“Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity …”

“This emotion which we fear and which shakes us when it passes through our hearts is the law of nature that guides the moon around the earth and the sun around the God.”

“… love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of seasons …”

Lake of Fire

“The heads of religion in the East are not satisfied with their own munificence, but they must strive to make all members of their families superiors and oppressors … Thus the Christian bishop and the Moslem imam and the Brahman priest become like sea reptiles who clutch their prey with many tentacles and suck their blood with numerous mouths.”

“The eye could not resist a spear without being pierced, and the hand could not grasp a sword without being cut off.”

“In some countries, the parent’s wealth is a source of misery for the children.”

“Nothing was more beautiful than those days of love, and nothing was more bitter than those horrible nights of sorrow.”

“Look at me, my friend; study my face and I read in it that which you want to know and which I cannot recite. Look at me, my beloved … look at me, my brother.”

“We disobeyed no commandment, nor did we taste of forbidden fruit, so what is making us leave this paradise?”

Gibran: “I will be as you want me to be, my beloved.” Selma: “I want you to love me as a poet loves his sorrowful thoughts.” Gibran: “I shall love you, Selma, as the prairies love the spring … Love will be my sole comforter, and I shall drink love like wine and wear it like garment … Love, my beloved Selma, will stay with me to the end of my life, and after death the hand of God will unite us again.”

Selma: “Oh, Lord … Thou hast created woman with love, and why, with love, dost Thou ruin her? … Oh, Lord, Thou hast opened my eyes with love, and with love Thou hast blinded me … Thou hast tied my present with the spirit of a young man whom I love, but my life with the body of an unknow man … Oh, Lord God, have mercy on me and mend my broken wings!”

Before the Throne of Death

“The woman of yesterday was a happy wife, but the woman of today is a miserable mistress. In the past she walked blindly in the light, but now she walks open-eyed in the dark. She was beautiful in her ignorance, virtuous in her simplicity, and strong in her weakness. Today she has become ugly in her ingenuity, superficial and heartless in her knowledge. Will the day ever come when beauty and knowledge, ingenuity and virtue, and weakness of body and strength of spirit will be united in a woman?”

“… 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.”

Gibran: “Come, Selma, come and let us be as strong towers before the tempest. Let us stand like brave soldiers before the enemy and face his weapons. If we are killed, we shall die as martyrs; and if we win, we shall live as heroes. 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 …”

Selma: “Are you asking me to have patience, while you are in need of it yourself? Will a hungry man give his bread to another hungry man? Or will sick man give medicine to another which he himself needs badly?”

“All of us were toys in the hands of fate.”

“The most beautiful word on the lips of mankind is the word ‘Mother’, and the most beautiful call is the call of ‘My mother’. it is a word full of hope and love, a sweet and kind word coming from the depths of the heart. The mother is everything — she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly … And the mother, the prototype of all existence, is the eternal spirit, full of beauty and love.”

Selma: “This is the only friend I shall have after you are gone, but how can he console me when he is suffering also? How can a broken heart find consolation in a disappointed soul? A sorrowful woman cannot be comforted by her neighbor’s sorrow, nor can a bird fly with broken wings. He is the friend of my soul, but I have already placed a heavy burden of sorrow upon him and dimmed his eyes with my tears till he can see nothing but darkness. He is a brother whom I dearly love, but he is like all brothers who share my sorrow and help me shed tears which increase my bitterness and burn my heart.”

Farris Effandi: “Do not shed tears of misery upon my hand, for they may grow thorns upon my grave. Do not draw lines of agony upon my forehead, for the wind may pass and read them and refuse to carry the dust of my bones to the green prairies … mourning for the dead is a mistake.”

“The will of humanity cannot change the will of God, as an astrologer cannot change the course of the stars.”

“Oh, Lord, have mercy and mend our broken wings.”

“Many a time I tried to forget my misfortune by occupying myself with books and scriptures of past generation, but it was like extinguishing fire with oil, for I could see nothing in the procession of the past but tragedy and could hear nothing but weeping and wailing.”

Between Christ and Ishtar

“The man buys glory and reputation, but the woman pays the price.”

“The spirit which is purified by fire and washed by tears is higher than what the people call shame and disgrace; it is free from the laws of slavery and old customs against the affections of the human heart. That spirit can proudly stand unashamed before the throne of God.”

“The spirit who has seen the spectre of death cannot be scared by the faces of thieves; the soldier who has seen the swords glittering over his head and streams of blood under his feet does not care about rocks thrown at him by the children on the streets.”

Sacrifice

“Is separation the only means of avoiding people’s evils and meanness? Has the path of love and freedom been closed and is nothing left except submission to the will of the slaves of death?”

“Love is a precious treasure, it is God’s gift to sensitive and great spirits. Shall we throw this treasure away and let the pigs scatter it and trample on it?”

Selma: “I am not worthy of a new life of love and peace; I am not strong enough for life’s pleasure and sweetness, because a bird with broken wings cannot fly in the spacious sky. The eyes that are accustomed to the dim light of a candle are not strong enough to stare at the sun. Do not talk to me of happiness; its memory makes me suffer. Mention not peace to me; its shadow frightens me; but look at me and I will show you the holy torch which Heaven has lighted in the ashes of my heart — you know that I love you as a mother loves her only child, and Love only taught me to protect you even from myself. It is Love, purified with fire, that stops me from following you to the farthest land. Love kills my desires so that you may live freely and virtuously. Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself … Love which is born in the firmament’s lap and has descended with the night’s secrets is not contended with anything but Eternity and immortality; it does not stand reverently before anything except deity … I found out that our love was as deep as the ocean and as high as the stars and as spacious as the sky … I came here to tell you good-bye, my beloved, and it is my hope that our farewell will be great and awful like our love. Let our farewell be like fire that bends the gold and makes it more resplendent … Do not sympathize with me, my beloved, and do not feel sorry for me, because the soul that sees the shadow of God once will never be frightened, thereafter, of the ghosts of devils. And the eye that looks on heaven once will not be closed by the pains of the world.”

“It was my first discovery of the fact that men, even if they are born free, will remain slaves of strict laws enacted by their forefathers; and that the firmament, which we imagine as unchanging, is the yielding of today to the will of tomorrow and submission of yesterday to the will of today …”

“I have made a comparison between nobility of sacrifice and happiness of rebellion to find out which one is nobler and more beautiful; but until now I have distilled only one truth out of the whole matter, and this truth is sincerity, which makes all our deeds beautiful and honorable. And this sincerity was in Selma Karamy.”

The Rescuer

The grave digger: “Right here; I placed his daughter upon him and upon his daughter’s breast rests her child, and upon all I put the earth back with this shovel.” Gibran: “In this ditch you have also buried my heart.”

SPIRIT REBELLIOUS

Novelis: Khalil Gibran

I: Madame Rose Hanie

“Rashid Bey Namaan was generous and good-hearted, but like many of the Syrians, looked only at the superficial things instead of reality. He never hearkened to the dictates of his heart, but busied himself in obeying the voices of his environment.”

“When a man loses the ease of his heart, where can he find comfort, and with what can he replace it? What mind can master it?”

“Please do not ask anything further. Do not make a crying voice of my calamity, but let it rather be mute misfortune; perhaps it will grow in silence and deaden me away so that I may rest at last with peace.”

“Haven’t we heard that obvious beauty is the cause of many hidden distresses and deep suffering?”

“A woman’s happiness does not come through man’s glory and honour, nor through his generosity and affection, but through love that unites both of their hearts and affections, making them one member of life’s body and one word upon the lips of God.”

“Love is a power that makes our hearts, yet our hearts cannot make that power.”

“Love descends upon our souls by the will of God and not by the demand or the plea of the individual.”

“Those people who go to back to eternity before they taste the sweetness of real life are unable to understand the meaning of a woman’s suffering. Especially when she devotes her soul to a man she loves by the will of God, and her body to another whom she caresses by the enforcement of earthly law. It is a tragedy written with the blood of the woman’s blood and tears which the man reads with ridicule because he cannot understand it; yet, if he does understand, his laughter will turn into scorn and blasphemy that act like fire upon her heart.”

“They are like the deserted caves of the mountains that echo voices whose meanings are not understood. They neither understand the law of God, nor comprehend the true intent of veritable religion, nor distinguish between a sinner and an innocent. They look only at the surface of objects without knowing their secrets. They pass their verdicts with ignorance, and judge with blindness, making the criminal and the innocent, the good and the bad, equal.”

“They judge the soul by the outcome of the body and measure the spirit by the standard of matter.”

“They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.”

“God does not want me to lead a miserable life, for He placed in the depths of my heart a desire for happiness; His glory rests in the happiness of my heart.”

“For the first time in my life I found the phantom of happiness standing between a man and a woman, cursed by religion and opposed by the law.”

“Many times ignorance kills a woman’s honour and revives her passion; she grows tired and leaves her husband, prompted by her desires, and follows a man to whom she lowers herself.”

“Is it permissible for a woman to buy her happiness with her husband’s misery? (…) Is it lawful for a man to enslave his wife’s affection when he realizes he will never possess it?”

II: The Cry of the Graves

“When a man kills another man, the people say he is a murderer, but when the Emir kills him, the Emir is just. When a man robs a monastery, they say he is a thief, but when the Emir robs him of his life, the Emir is honourable. When a woman betrays her husband, they say she is an adulteress, but when the Emir makes her walk naked in the streets and stones her later, the Emir is noble (…) Shall we meet evil with evil and say this is the Law? Shall we fight corruption with greater corruption and say this is the Rule? Shall we conquer crimes with more crimes and say this is Justice?”

“The soul is like a flower that folds its petals when dark comes, and breathes not its fragrance into the phantoms of the night.”

III: Khalil the Heretic

“Mercy and cruelty are both wrestling in the human heart like the mad elements in the sky of this terrible night, but mercy shall overcome cruelty because it is divine, and the terror alone, of this night, shall pass away when daylight comes.”

“The animals have their caves, and the birds of the sky their nests, but the son of man has not place to rest his head (…) This is the answer for every man who wants to follow the Spirit and the Truth in this age of falsehood, hypocrisy and corruption.”

“The true light is that which emanates from within man, and reveals the secrets of the heart to the soul, making it happy and contented with life. Truth is like the stars; it does not appear except from behind obscurity of the night. Truth is like all beautiful things in the world; it does not disclose its desirability except to those who first feel the influence of falsehood. Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.”

“He who does not see the kingdom of heaven in this life will never see it in the coming life. We came not into this life by exile, but we came as innocent creatures of God, to learn how to worship the holy and eternal spirit and seek the hidden secrets within ourselves from the beauty of life.”

“You pretend that you are killing your bodies, but in fact you are killing your souls.”

“The people’s tears are more beautiful and God-joined than the ease and tranquility to which you have accustomed yourselves in this place. The sympathy that touches the neighbour’s heart is more supreme than the hidden virtue in the unseen corners of the convent. A word of compassion to the weak criminal or prostitute is nobler than the long prayer which we repeat emptily every day in the temple.”

“The viper will not become a dove if placed in a cage, nor will the briar bear figs if planted in the vineyards.”

“He who has been chosen by heaven as a defender of Truth will not perish by heaven’s own storms and snow (…) The storms and snow may kill the flowers, but cannot deaden the seeds, for the snow keeps them warm from the killing frost.”

“Will a good son leave his mother if she is ill? Will a merciful man deny his brother who is miserable?”

“Listen to my protest, and do not be merciful, but be just, for mercy is bestowed upon the guilty criminal, while justice is all that an innocent man requires.”

“The will of the people is the will of God.”

“The dying man cannot hear his own heart rattling, while those who are standing by his bedside can surely hear. The slaughtered bird, in spite of his will, dances painfully and unknowingly, but those who witness the dance know what caused it.”

“God has placed a glowing torch in your hearts that glows in knowledge and beauty, and seeks the secrets of the days and nights; it is a sin to extinguish that torch and bury it in ashes. God has created your spirits with wings to fly in the spacious firmament of Love and Freedom; it is pityful that you cut your wings with your own hands and suffer your spirits to crawl like insects upon the earth.”

“I will die happy and in peace because I have fulfilled my mission and revealed to you the Truth which demons consider a crime. I have now completed the will of the Almighty God.”