Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran (87 page)

Happiness on earth is but a fleet,
Passing ghost, which man craves
At any cost in gold or time. And
When the phantom becomes the
Reality, man soon wearies of it.
   
T-371

HARDSHIP

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.

BW-ST-89

HATE

I use hate as a weapon to defend myself; had I been strong, I would never have needed that kind of weapon.

MS-72

HEAVEN

The angels keep count of every tear shed by Sorrow; and they bring to the ears of the spirits hovering in the heavens of the Infinite each song of Joy wrought from our affections.

There, in the world to come, we shall see and feel all the vibrations of our feelings and the motions of our hearts. We shall understand the meaning of the divinity within us, whom we contemn because we are prompted by Despair.

WM-ST-32

HELL

Hell is not in torture;

Hell is in an empty heart.

   
MS-74

HERD

Say not, “There goes a learned man”
     Nor, “There a chieftain dignified.”
The best of men are in the herd,
     And heed the shepherd as their guide.
   
P-41

HONORS

Honors are but false delusions
     Like the froth upon the wave.
Should the almond spray its blossoms
     On the turf around its feet,
Never will it claim a lordship,
     Nor disdain the grass to greet.
   
P-55

HOPE

Hope is found not in the forest,
     Nor the wild portray despair;
Why should forest long for portions
     When the ALL is centered there?
Should one search the forest hopeful,
     When
all nature
is the Aim?
For to hope is but an ailment,
     So are station, wealth and fame.
   
P-58

HUMANITY

Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that humanity is standing amidst ruins, hiding its nakedness behind tattered rags, shedding tears upon hollow cheeks, and calling for its children with pitiful voice. But the children are busy singing their clan's anthem; they are busy sharpening the swords and cannot hear the cry of their mothers.

Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that Supreme Being preaches love and good-will. But the people ridicule such teachings. The Nazarene Jesus listened, and crucifixion was his lot; Socrates heard the voice and followed it, and he too fell victim in body. The followers of The Nazarene and Socrates are the followers of Deity, and since people will not kill them, they deride them, saying, “Ridicule is more bitter than killing.”

TL-T-5

My soul preached to me and showed me that I am neither more than the pygmy, nor less than the giant.

Ere my soul preached to me, I looked upon humanity as two men: one weak, whom I pitied, and the other strong, whom I followed or resisted in defiance.

But now I have learned that I was as both are and made from the same elements. My origin is their origin, my conscience is their conscience, my contention is their contention, and my pilgrimage is their pilgrimage.

If they sin, I am also a sinner. If they do well, I take pride in their well-doing. If they rise, I rise with them. If they stay inert, I share their slothfulness.

TM-ST-31

HUNGER

A hungry man in a desert will not refuse to eat dry bread if Heaven does not shower him with manna and quails.

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HUSBAND

Are you a husband who regards the wrongs he has committed as lawful, but those of his wife as unlawful? If so, you are like those extinct savages who lived in caves and covered their nakedness with hides.

Or are you a faithful companion, whose wife is ever at his side, sharing his every thought, rapture, and victory? If so, you are as one who at dawn walks at the head of a nation toward the high noon of justice, reason and wisdom.

WM-ST-35

I

IDEAS

How blind is the one who fancies and plans a matter in all true form and angles, and when he cannot prove it completely with superficial measurement and word proofs, believes that his idea and imagination were empty objects! But if he contemplates with sincerity and meditates upon these happenings, he will understand with conviction that his idea is as much a reality as is the bird of the sky, but that it is not yet crystallized, and that the idea is a segment of knowledge that cannot be proved with figures and words, for it is too high and too spacious to be imprisoned at that moment; too deeply imbedded in the spiritual to submit yet to the real.

SH-T-148

Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today, made by past generations, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman. The revolutions that shed so much blood and turned men's minds toward liberty were the idea of one man who lived in the midst of thousands of men. The devastating wars which destroyed empires were a thought that existed in the mind of an individual. The supreme teachings that changed the course of humanity were the ideas of a man whose genius separated him from his environment. A single thought built the Pyramids, founded the glory of Islam, and caused the burning of the library at Alexandria.

BW-ST-49

IGNORANCE

In the house of Ignorance there is no mirror in which to view your soul.

SH-T-87

During the ebb, I wrote a line upon the sand,
Committing to it all that is in my soul and mind;
I returned at the tide to read it and to ponder upon it,
I found naught upon the seashore but my ignorance.
   
MS-39

ILLNESS

I have found pleasure in being ill. This pleasure differs with its effect from any other pleasure. I have found a sort of tranquility that makes me love illness. The sick man is safe from people's strife, demands, dates and appointments … I have found another kind of enjoyment through illness which is more important and unmeasurable. I have found that I am closer to abstract things in my sickness than in health.

SP-ST-84

I have pleasure in being ill. This pleasure differs with its effect from other pleasure. I have found a sort of tranquility that makes me love illness. The sick man is safe from people's strife, demands, dates and appointments, excess of talking and ringing of telephones. … I have found that I am closer to abstract things in my sickness than in health. When I lay my head and close my eyes and lose myself to the world, I find myself flying like a bird over serene valleys and forests, wrapped in a gentle veil. I see myself close to those whom my heart has loved, calling and talking to them, but without anger and with the same feelings they feel and the same thoughts they think. They lay their hands now and then upon my forehead to bless me.

SP-P-34

ILLUSION

Man's will is a floating shadow

In the mind he conceives,

And the rights of mankind pass and

Perish like the Autumn leaves.

   
P-51

IMAGINATION

Thoughts have a higher dwelling place than the visible world, and its skies are not clouded by sensuality. Imagination finds a road to the realm of the gods, and there man can glimpse that which is to be after the soul's liberation from the world of substance.

TM-ST-74

With one leap it [the imagination] would reach the core of life, divest it of all excrescences, then burn these excrescences and fling their ashes into the eyes of those who brought them into being. So must all imaginations be.

KG-P-24

IMITATION

The people of the city feign great

Wisdom and knowledge, but their

Fancy remains false forever, for

They are but experts of imitation.

It gives them pride to calculate

That a barter will bring no loss

Or gain. The idiot imagines himself

A king and no power can alter his

Great thoughts and dreams. The

Proud fool mistakes his mirror for

The sky, and his shadow for a

Moon that gleams high from the

Heavens.

   
T-368

IMMORTALITY

Death on earth, to son of earth

Is final, but to him who is

Ethereal, it is but the start

Of triumph certain to be his.

If one embraces dawn in dreams,

He is immortal! Should he sleep

His long night through, he surely fades

Into a sea of slumber deep.

For he who closely hugs the ground

When wide awake will crawl 'til end.

And death, like sea, who braves it light

Will cross it. Weighted will descend.

   
P-70

If I did not covet immortality, I would never have learned the song which has been sung through all of time.

Rather, I would have been a suicide, nothing remaining of me except my ashes hidden within the tomb….

Life is a darkness which ends as in the sunburst of the day.

The yearning of my heart tells me there is peace in the grave.

If some fool tells you the soul perishes like the body and that which dies never returns, tell him the flower perishes but the seed remains and lies before us as the secret of life everlasting.

MS-58

IMPERMANENCE

Mankind is like verses written

Upon the surface of the rills.

   
P-35

INDICTMENT

I will gladly exchange my outcries for cheerful laughter, speak eulogies instead of indictments, replace excess with moderation, provided you show me a just governor, a lawyer of integrity, a religious hierarch who practices what he preaches, a husband who looks upon his wife with the same eyes as he looks upon himself.

TM-ST-96

INFINITE

We are naught but frail atoms in the heavens of the infinite; and we cannot but obey and surrender to the will of Providence.

If we love, our love is neither from us, nor is it for us. If we rejoice, our joy is not in us, but in Life itself. If we suffer, our pain lies not in our wounds, but in the very heart of Nature.

WM-ST-23

INHERITANCE

The man who acquires his wealth by inheritance builds his mansion with the weak poor's money.

SR-T-269

INTOXICATION

The human turns to drugging,

As to nursing from the breast;

Coming to the age of weaning

Only when he's put to rest.

   
P-39

ISLAND

Life is an island in an ocean of loneliness, an island whose rocks are hopes, whose trees are dreams, whose flowers are solitude, and whose brooks are thirst.

Your life, my fellow men, is an island separated from all other islands and regions. No matter how many are the ships that leave your shores for other climes, no matter how many are the fleets that touch your coast, you remain a solitary island, suffering the pangs of loneliness and yearning for happiness. You are unknown to your fellow men and far removed from their sympathy and understanding.

WM-ST-41

J

JESUS

Humanity looks upon Jesus the Nazarene as a poor-born Who suffered misery and humiliation with all of the weak. And He is pitied, for Humanity believes He was crucified painfully…. And all that Humanity offers to Him is crying and wailing and lamentation. For centuries Humanity has been worshipping weakness in the person of the Saviour.

The Nazarene was not weak! He was strong and is strong! But the people refuse to heed the true meaning of strength.

SH-T-154

Jesus came not from the heart of the circle of Light to destroy the homes and build upon their ruins the convents and monasteries. He did not persuade the strong man to become a monk or a priest, but He came to send forth upon this earth a new spirit, with power to crumble the foundation of any monarchy built upon human bones and skulls…. He came to demolish the majestic palaces, constructed upon the graves of the weak, and crush the idols, erected upon the bodies of the poor. Jesus was not sent here to teach the people to build magnificent churches and temples amidst the cold wretched huts and dismal hovels…. He came to make the human heart a temple, and the soul an altar, and the mind a priest.

SH-T-155

Surely you have prayed enough to last you to the end of your days, and hence forth you shall not enter a church as a worshipper; for the Jesus you love so dearly is not found in churches. Many are the places of worship, but few indeed are those who worship in Spirit and in truth.

KG-P-19

JOURNALIST

Are you a journalist who sells his principles in the markets of slaves and who fattens on gossip and misfortune and crime? If so, you are like a ravenous vulture preying upon rotting carrion.

WM-ST-35

JUDGMENT

The learned man who has not judgment is like an unarmed soldier proceeding into battle. His wrath will poison the pure spring of the life of his community and he will be like the grain of aloes in a pitcher of pure water.

WM-ST-54

JUSTICE

Justice on earth would cause the Jinn

To cry at misuse of the word,

And were the dead to witness it,

They'd mock at fairness in this world.