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Kahlil Gibran

United States writer (born in Lebanon) (1883-1931) Gibran was born in the town of Bsharri in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate, Ottoman Empire (modern day Lebanon), to Khalil Gibran and Kamila Gibran (Rahmeh). As a young man Gibran emigrated 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. A member of the New York Pen League, he is chiefly known in the English-speaking world for his 1923 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 1960s counterculture. Gibran is the third best-selling poet of all time, behind Shakespeare and Laozi.

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Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

– Kahlil Gibran

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The reality of the other person lies 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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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As one's gifts increase, his friends decrease.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Fear of the devil is one way of doubting God.

– Kahlil Gibran

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God has placed in each soul an apostle to lead us upon the illumined path. Yet many seek life from without, unaware that is within them.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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If you are poor, shun association with him who measures men with the yardstick of riches.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.

– Kahlil Gibran

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The giving and receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.

– Kahlil Gibran

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The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness and knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.

– Kahlil Gibran

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When you have solved all the mysteries of life you long for death, for it is but another mystery of life.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Where can I find a man governed by reason instead of habits and urges

– Kahlil Gibran

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Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

– Kahlil Gibran

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You see but your shadow when you turn your back to the sun.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself... 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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Keep me away from the wisdom that does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Our worst fault is our preoccupation with the faults of others.

– Kahlil Gibran

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I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense is equal to my wishes.

– Kahlil Gibran

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I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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You progress not through improving what has been done, but reaching toward what has yet to be done.

– Kahlil Gibran

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My friends and my road-fellows, pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block. Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking. Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Half of what I say is meaningless but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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What do the nationalists say about killers punishing murderers and thieves sentencing looters

– Kahlil Gibran

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Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.

– Kahlil Gibran

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History does not repeat itself except in the minds of those who do not know history.

– Kahlil Gibran

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If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

– Kahlil Gibran

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In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Your confidence in the people, and your doubt about them, are closely related to your self-confidence and your self-doubt.

– Kahlil Gibran

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A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

– Kahlil Gibran

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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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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Friendship is always a sweet responsibility never an opportunity.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

– Kahlil Gibran

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A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Man merely discovers' he never can and never will invent.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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The best of men is he who blushes when you praise him and remains silent when you defame him.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Time has been transformed, and we have changed it has advanced and set us in motion it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Wailing and lamentation befit those who stand before the throne of life and depart without leaving in its hands a drop of the sweat of their brows or the blood of their hearts.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Education sows not seeds in you, but makes your seeds grow.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.

– Kahlil Gibran

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If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.

– Kahlil Gibran

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He who requires urging to do a noble act will never accomplish it.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Cast aside those who liken godliness to whimsy and who try to combine their greed for wealth with their desire for a happy afterlife.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love love recompenses the adorers.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manefestation of nature agree to find new shapes.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.

– Kahlil Gibran

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During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk. When once the risk has really been taken, then the greatest danger is to risk too much.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.

– Kahlil Gibran

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I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.

– Kahlil Gibran

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I learnt silence from the talkative

– Kahlil Gibran

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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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.

– Kahlil Gibran

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If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.

– Kahlil Gibran

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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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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In the depth of my soul there is a wordless song.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Let there be spaces in your togetherness.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Love is know the pain of too much tenderness.

– Kahlil Gibran

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No lower can a man descend than to interpret his dreams into gold and silver.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Oh, heart, I the ignorant say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower perishes, but the seeds remain. This is the law of God.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

– Kahlil Gibran

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The bird has an honor that man does not have. Man lives in the traps of his abdicated laws and traditions but the birds live according to the natural law of God who causes the earth to turn around the sun.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.

– Kahlil Gibran

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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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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The most solid stone in the structure is the lowest one in the foundation.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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The truly religious man does not embrace a religion and he who embraces one has no religion.

– Kahlil Gibran

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They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

– Kahlil Gibran

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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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.

– Kahlil Gibran

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To be closer to God, be closer to people.

– Kahlil Gibran

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To realize that prophecy in the people is like fruit in the tree is to know the unity of life.

– Kahlil Gibran

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We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

– Kahlil Gibran

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We fear death, yet we long for slumber and beautiful dreams.

– Kahlil Gibran

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We were a silent, hidden thought in the folds of oblivion, and we have become a voice that causes the heavens to tremble.

– Kahlil Gibran

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What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you

– Kahlil Gibran

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What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt

– Kahlil Gibran

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When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.

– Kahlil Gibran

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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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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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.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills

– Kahlil Gibran

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Work is love made visible. And if you cannot 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 those who work with joy.

– Kahlil Gibran

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Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

– Kahlil Gibran

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

– Kahlil Gibran

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