Kahlil Gibran

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

"Life kisses our faces every morning. Yet, between morning and evening, she laughs at our sorrows."

"We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side."

"Smile, my beloved, like the gold smiles from my father's coffers."

"And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?"

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

"Life is not only merriment,It is desire and determination."

"For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly."

"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."

"Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world. But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also. And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all. Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self. You are the way and the wayfarers. And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone."

"Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of the Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts."

"Your children are not your children. They are 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 thir 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 make 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 also loves the bow that is stable."

"When you see a man led to prison say in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping from a narrower prison." And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful."

"You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams"

"Not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city."

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

"My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear - a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence"

"An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind."

"“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper,That we may record our emptiness.”"

"Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant."