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Truth

• Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.
• 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.
• Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
• Say not I have found the truth, but rather I have found a truth.
• Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.” Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”  For the soul walks upon all paths.  The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.  The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals. 
• Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
• Truth is like the stars; it does not appear except from behind obscurity of the night. Truth is like all beautiful things in the world; it does not disclose its desirability except to those who first feel the influence of falsehood. Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.  
• Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

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Wisdom

• God has bestowed upon you intelligence and knowledge. Do not extinguish the lamp of Divine Grace and do not let the candle of wisdom die out in the darkness of lust and error. For a wise man approaches with his torch to light up the path of mankind.
• Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
• No person can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teachers who walk in the shadow of the temple, among their followers, give not of their wisdom but rather of their faith and their lovingness. If they are indeed wise they do not bid you enter the house of their wisdom, but rather lead you to the threshold of your own mind.
• Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfful to seek other than itself.
• Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

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Knowledge

• A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.
• Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.
• Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
• Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
• When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.

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Self-knowledge

• 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.

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Understanding

• The reality of the other person is 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.
• It is well to give when asked but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.
• He who repeats what he does not understand is no better than an ass that is loaded with books.
• To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
• Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

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Action

• A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

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Determination

• Life is not only merriment, it is desire and determination.

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Momentum and progress

• Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
• March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.
• Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

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Work

• All work is empty save when there is love. And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
• When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
• When you work, you fulfill a part of earth’s fondest dream assigned to you when that dream is born.
• 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.  For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half people’s hunger.
• If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

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Love

• All work is empty save when there is love. And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
• And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
• And think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
• But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
• Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.
• I wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.
• If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.
• Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
• Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
• Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.
• Love is trembling happiness.
• Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. 
• Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.
• .. it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.
• The chemist who can extract from his heart’s elements compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.
• When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
• When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart”, but rather, “I am in the heart of God”.
• Work is love made visible.

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Kindness

• Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions.
• The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.
• Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
• Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone, and a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse.

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Forgiveness

• If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
• Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.

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Giving

• For to the fruit giving is a need as receiving is a need to the root.
• Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
• 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.
• It is well to give when asked but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.
• Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and enlivens the other who turns it on his fellow man.
• There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
• You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

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Abundance

• To you the Earth yields her fruit, and you shall not want if you know how to fill your hands.
• You pray in your distress and in your need, would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

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Gratitude

• I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to those teachers.
• I wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.

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Friendship

• Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
• A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe- inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
• In the 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.
• Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
• Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

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Space in relationships

• And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
• But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

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Joy

• We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
• When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. 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. 

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Beauty

• Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
• Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
• 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.
• Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

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Acceptance

• Accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

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Desire

• All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

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Exploration

• A traveler am I, and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.

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Desire

• Desire is half of life, indifference is half of death.

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Faith

• Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
• Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
• Faith is an oasis in the heart which can never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

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Strength

• Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions.
• 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 ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.

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Modesty

• Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean. And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?

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Thought

• For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
• Faith is an oasis in the heart which can never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

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Freedom

• Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.
• I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
• Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

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Silence

• I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
• Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
• There is something greater and purer than what the mouth utters. Silence illuminates our souls, whispers to our hearts, and brings them together.

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Dreams

• I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
• The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
• Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

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Acceptance

• If I accept the sunshine and warmth, then I must also accept the thunder and lightning.

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Habit

• Sayings remain meaningless until they are embodied in habits.

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Laughter

• Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
• Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.

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Simple living

• In the dew of little things, the heart finds it’s morning and is refreshed.
• Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

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Simplicity

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

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Truth

• 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.

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The treasure within

• In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.
• The appearance of things change according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.

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Justice and mercy

• The just is close to the people’s heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.

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Optimism

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

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Attitude and perception

• Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

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Spirit

• You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields. That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind…

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Prayer

• You pray in your distress and in your need, would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

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Pain

• 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.
• Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you cannot bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.
• Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility; for his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, and the cup he brings, though it burn your lips has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
• Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
• Pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility: For this hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen…

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Suffering

• Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

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Sinning

• Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality.

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Sadness and sorrow

• Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
• Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow.
• 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.
• The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
• We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
• When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. 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.  

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Adversity

• 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.
• Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
• One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.

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Indifference

• Desire is half of life, indifference is half of death.

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Doubt

• Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
• Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

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Loss

• The heart’s affections are divided like the branches of the cedar tree; if the tree loses one strong branch; it will suffer but it does not die; it will pour all its vitality into the next branch so that it will grow and fill the empty place.

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Fault finding

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

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Solitude

• Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow.
• 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.

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Guilt

• That deed which in our guilt we today call weakness, will appear tomorrow as an essential link in the complete chain of Man.

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Poverty

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

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Pessimism

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

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Exaggeration

• Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.

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Confusion

• Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

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Hate

• Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?
• If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?

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Revenge

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

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Need for comfort

• Luxury: The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master. 
• The lust for comfort murders the passions of the soul.

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The shadow

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

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Secrets

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

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Nature

• And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
• For what is it to die, But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind? And when the Earth has claimed our limbs, Then we shall truly dance.
• Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.

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Art

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

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Words

• All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.
• Words are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness.

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Music

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

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Eating

• 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.

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Poets and poetry

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

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Advice

• Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.
• When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.

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Religion

• 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.
• Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

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Death

• Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.
• For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
• 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.
• If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.
• Man is like the foam of the sea, that floats upon the surface of the water. When the wind blows, it vanishes, as if it had never been. Thus are our lives blown away by Death.

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Children

• You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
• 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 their 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. 
• Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

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Manners

• The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.

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Money

• The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
• They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

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Memory

• To be able to look back on one’s life in satisfaction is to live twice.
• If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.

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Time

• Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.
• Yet 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. And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.
• 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.

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• A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.
• A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.
• Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.
• Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.
• 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.
• Let your home be your mast and not your anchor.
• Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
• 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.
• The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.
• 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.
• They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.
• To realize that prophecy in the people is like fruit in the tree is to know the unity of life.
• What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
• 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?
• 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.
• You have your ideology and I have mine.
• Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.

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• A young woman stepped forward from the throng and asked, ‘O’ great prophet, tell us how we might find love that is unconditional, unwavering, and unending.’ The prophet did not answer right away.  He looked off into the distance, gathering his thoughts.  Silence descended upon the crowd.  Then he turned his gaze upon the young woman and said, ‘Get a dog.’  The Prophet by  (1st draft)

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