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Adversity
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One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.
-Kahlil Gibran
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Advice
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When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Age
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Seek ye counsel of the aged for their eyes have looked on the faces of the years and their ears have hardened to the voices of Life. Even if their counsel is displeasing to you, pay heed to them.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Ambition
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Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Visit of Wisdom"
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Art
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Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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Attitude
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Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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Beauty
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Beauty in not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Body, the
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Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.
-Kahlil Gibran, "Beauty"
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Charity
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You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Children
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran
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You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Choice
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We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
-Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam
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Contentment
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Dance, Dancing
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And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Death
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Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet"
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Desires
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The significance of a man is not in what he attains, but rather what he longs to attain.
-Kahlil Gibran
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All that spirits desire, spirits attain.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Poet of Baalbek"
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Difficulty
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Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet"
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Doubt
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Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Dreams
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To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Drinking
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran, "My Soul Is Heavy Laden with its Fruits"
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Exaggeration
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An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Faith
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Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet"
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What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Visit of Wisdom"
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Forgiveness
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If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Freedom
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You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?
-Kahlil Gibran
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Friends
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Your friend is your needs answered.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Your friend is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
-Kahlil Gibran
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In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Futility
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Life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, and all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, and all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Future, The
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Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Generosity
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Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
-Kahlil Gibran
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For this I bless you most: You give much and know not that you give at all.
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet - The Farewell
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam
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Goodness
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Greatness & Great Things
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The lights of stars that were extinguished ages ago still reaches us. So it is with great men who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Growth
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Your children are not your children.
They are the 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.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows might 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 loves also the bow that is stable.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Guilt
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That deed which in our guilt we today call weakness, will appear tomorrow as an essential link in the complete chain of Man.
-Kahlil Gibran, The Voice of the Master, trans. Anthony R. Ferris
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Humility
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I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Ignorance & Stupidity
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I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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Kindness
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Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolutions.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Knowledge
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Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
-Kahlil Gibran
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No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
-Kahlil Gibran
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A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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Learning
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I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
-Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam
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Legacy
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Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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Liberty
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Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Vision"
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Love
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Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Vision"
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.
-Kahlil Gibran
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It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Mind, the
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Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Money
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Nature
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Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Pacifism
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If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet"
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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?
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet"
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Pain
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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Patriotism
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What do the nationalists say about killers punishing murderers and thieves sentencing looters?
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet"
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People
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Visit of Wisdom"
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Perception
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The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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Poetry
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Poet of Baalbek"
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Potential
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For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
-Kahlil Gibran
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Power
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We were a silent, hidden thought in the folds of oblivion, and we have become a voice that causes the heavens to tremble.
-Kahlil Gibran, "Children of Gods, Scions of Apes"
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Progress
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Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
-Kahlil Gibran, "Children of Gods, Scions of Apes"
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Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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Reflection
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Philosophy of Logic"
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Religion
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet"
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Cast aside those who liken godliness to whimsy and who try to combine their greed for wealth with their desire for a happy afterlife.
-Kahlil Gibran, "Beauty"
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Revolution
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Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
-Kahlil Gibran, The Vision
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Safety
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The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Secrets
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If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
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Service
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Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country?
-Kahlil Gibran, The New Frontier
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Shyness
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What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Captive King"
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Silence
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Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Simplicity
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The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Soul
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran, "Anthem of Humanity"
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Suffering
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Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Teaching
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The teacher gives not of his wisdom, but rather of his faith and lovingness.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Time
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran, "Children of Gods, Scions of Apes"
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Truth
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Say not, I have found the truth, but rather, I have found a truth.
-Kahlil Gibran
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War
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Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Voice of the Poet"
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Wealth
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Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.
-Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
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Wisdom
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Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
-Kahlil Gibran, "Between Reality and Fantasy"
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Work
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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.
-Kahlil Gibran
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Books by and about Kahlil Gibran
