Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

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

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

"For Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended,is a flame that burns to its own destruction."

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

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

"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.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."

"We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered."

"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge."

"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."

"He who is more mindful of one, loses the love and the faith of both."

"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.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."

"إذا أشارت إليكم المحبة فاتبعوها, وإن كانت مسالكها صعبة متحدرة.وإذا ضمتكم جناحيها فاطيعوها, وإن جرحكم السيف المستور بين ريشها. واذا خاطبتكم المحبة فصدقُوها, وإن عَطل صوتها أحلامكم وبدَدها كما تجعل الريح الشمالية البستان قاعا صفصفا.لأنه كما أن المحبة تكللكم فهي أيضا تصلبكم,وكما تعمل على نموكم هكذا تعلمكم وتستأصل الفاسد منكم."

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

"You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.This is but half the truth.You are also as strong as your strongest link.To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the oceanby the frailty of its foam.To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy."

"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."

"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."

"When you part from your friend, you grieve not;For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, asthe mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain."

"Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.But you are eternity and you are the mirror."

"No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge."

"He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin."