Kahlil Gibran

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.

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

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

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

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live.For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.And in th sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

I love you, my brother, whoever you are - whether you worship in a church, kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque. You and I are children of one faith, for the diverse paths of religion are fingers of the loving hand of the one supreme being, a hand extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, eager to receive all.

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.

I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.

Behind the veil of each night, there is a smiling dawn.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.