Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran Read Online Free

you can contain.
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.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
    Â 
    The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose.
    Â 
    The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
    Â 
    Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
    Â 
    The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.
    Â 
    It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.
    Â 
    The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.
    Â 
    There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
    Â 
    You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving." The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pastures. They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
    Â 
    They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.
    Â 
    It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression.
    Â 
    Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky; we fell them down and turn them into paper, that we may record our emptiness.
    Â 
    Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.
    Â 
    Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    The just is close to the people's heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.
    Â 
    We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
    Â 
    The philosopher's soul dwells in his head, the poet's soul is in his heart; the singer's soul lingers about his throat, but the soul of the dancer abides in all her body.
    Â 
    What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
    Â 
    The earth is like a beautiful bride who needs no manmade jewels to heighten her loveliness...
    Â 
    No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.
    Â 
    Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.
    Â 
    We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.
    Â 
    Much of your pain is self-chosen.
    Â 
    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?
    Â 
    I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
    Â 
    Thus with