Kahlil Gibran once again

• If reward is he goal of religion, if patriotism serves self-interest, and if education is persued for advancement, then I would prefer to be a non-believer, a non-patriot, and a humbly ignorant man.
• By adornment one acknowledges his ugliness.
• Ambition is a sort of work.
• The fear of Hell is hell itself, and the longing for paradise is paradise itself.
• If you choose between two evils, let your choice fall on the obvious rather than the hidden, even though the first appears greater than the second.
• Strange that virtue in me brings me nothing but harm, while my evil has never been to my disadvantage. Nevertheless, I continue fanatic in my virtue.
• If you wish to see the valley. climb to the mountain top; if you desire to see the mountain top, rise into the cloud; but if you seek to understand the cloud, close your eyes and think.
• Affection is the youth of the heart, and though is the heart's maturity; but oratory is its senility.
• Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.

Beauty

Beauty is not in the face.
Beauty is a light in the heart.

Have we then never heard it said, or seen it ourselves, that superficial beauty is sometimes responsible for many unknown but terrible calamities, and for so many profound and painful afflictions?
Is that moon which inspires poets not the same moon that breaks up the calm of the waters with ebb and flow?

The most subtle beauties of our life are invinsible and inaudible.

Believe in the divinity of Beauty which inspires your cult of Life and your aspiration to Happiness.

Life

Life is like an island lost in the ocean of solitude, an island where the rocks are our hopes and the trees our dreams, where the flowers are our solitude and the streams our aspirations.
Your Life is an island separate from all the other islands and regions. However many vessels leave your shores for other countries, however many fleets sail to your ports, you will always be a separate island, suffering the pangs of solitude and aspiring to happiness. Other men do not know you at all and they are far from pitying your solitude or understanding you.

My brothers, your life is like an isolated house, far from any human dwelling. A house which no gaze from outside can penetrate.
If it were deprived of light your neighbour’s lamp could not illuminate it. If the house stood in the desert you could not transport it into the garden of other men, ploughed and cultivated by other hands.

My brother, the life of the spirit goes by in solitude, and without this solitude and this isolation you would be in no way what you are, neither would be what I am. Without this isolation and this solitude, I should come to believe on hearing your voice that it is my voice which is speaking, or on seeing your face that it is the reflection of my face in a mirror.

Life without rebellion is like the season without spring. And rebellion without right is like spring in a barren desert. Life, rebellion and right are trinity which can neither be changed nor separated. Life is like the charger of night: the faster it gallops the sooner will come the dawn.

Quest for the Return

I have lived from the alpha of creation and I shall live until the omega of Eternity. And my existence shall never wither away.

I have floated in the universe of the infinite and flown in the upper air of the imaginary world. There I was close to the circle with its divine light; here, I am in the prison of matter.

I have listened to the teachings of Confucius and the wisdom of Brahma. And I have been with Buddha in the shade of the Knowledge-Tree. And now I face ignorance and apostasy.

I have climbed Mount Sinai where in the past Jehovah rose up before the eyes of Moses. I have purified my body in the Jordan and I have lived through the miracles of the Nazarene. And at Medina I have listened to that Messenger repeat the Word in Arabic. And now I am undecided.

I have known the strength of Babel, the glory of Egypt and the splendour of the Greeks. And perpetually I see weakness and servility, always present in all these creations.

I have kept company with the magicians of Ayn Dour. Elsewhere I have been the guest of the Assyrian hermits, and I have followed the prophets in the land of Palestine. And still I am searching for the truths.

I have learnt wisdom revealed in India and poetry breathed forth in Arabia. And I have heard the melodies that formed in the hearts of the countries where the sun is dying. And I see myself as still blind and I remain deaf to the sound of my unspeaking lips.

I have endured the ferocity and greed of conquerors and I have suffered beneath the yoke of tyrants. And I remain a force which fights at the stroke of every minute.

I have seen and heard all that when still a child, and I shall continue to look at and listen to all the shallow deeds of my youth. Once my hair is white I shall brush against the fringes of fulfilment and I shall regain the dwelling of Allah.

If you are dead, he will restore life to you.
And if you die again, he will raise you up until the hour comes for your return to him.