Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran Read Online Free Page A

my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names.
    Â 
    Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    Yesterday is but today's memory, tomorrow is today's dream.
    Â 
    Words are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    It was in my heart to help a little because I was helped much.
    Â 
    Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
    Â 
    Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    Love is trembling happiness.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.
    Â 
    I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
    Â 
    You may chain my hands, you may shackle my feet; you may even throw me into a dark prison; but you shall not enslave my thinking, because it is free!
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
    Â 
    If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
    Â 
    You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
    Â 
    The feelings we live through in love and in loneliness are simply, for us, what high tide and low tide are to the sea.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 
    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.
    Â 

TEARS AND
LAUGHTER

THE CREATION
    T HE G OD separated a spirit from Himself and fashioned it into beauty. He showered upon her all the blessings of gracefulness and kindness. He gave her the cup of happiness and said, “Drink not from this cup unless you forget the past and the future, for happiness is naught but the moment.” And He also gave her a cup of sorrow and said, “Drink from this cup and you will understand the meaning of the fleeting instants of the joy of life, for sorrow ever abounds.”
    And the God bestowed upon her a love that would desert her forever upon her first sigh of earthly satisfaction, and a sweetness that would vanish with her first awareness of