Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran (93 page)

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WEALTH

In some countries, the parent's wealth is a source of misery for the children. The wide strong box which the father and mother together have used for the safety of their wealth becomes a narrow, dark prison for the souls of their heirs. The Almighty Dinar which the people worship becomes a demon which punishes the spirit and deadens the heart.

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WILL

To Will belongs the Right. For Souls
     When strong prevail, when weak become
Subject to changes, good and bad,
     And with the wind may go and come.
Then, deny not that Will in Soul
     Is greater than the Might of Arm,
And weakling only mounts the throne
     Of those beyond the good and harm.
   
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WINGS

God has given you a spirit with wings on which to soar into the spacious firmament of Love and Freedom. Is it not pitiful then that you cut your wings with your own hands and suffer your soul to crawl like an insect upon the earth?

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WISDOM

The wise man is he who loves and reveres God. A man's merit lies in his knowledge and in his deeds, not in his color, faith, race, or descent. For remember, my friend, the son of a shepherd who possesses knowledge is of greater worth to a nation than the heir to the throne, if he be ignorant. Knowledge is your true patent of nobility, no matter who your father or what your race may be.

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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.

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WOMAN

A woman whom Providence has provided with beauty of spirit and body is a truth, at the same time both open and secret, which we can understand only by love, and touch only by virtue; and when we attempt to describe such a woman she disappears like a vapor.

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Women opened the windows of my eyes and the doors of my spirit. Had it not been for the woman-mother, the woman-sister, and the woman-friend, I would have been sleeping among those who seek the tranquility of the world with their snoring.

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Writers and poets try to understand the truth about woman. But until this day they have never understood her heart because, looking upon her through the veil of desire, they see nothing except the shape of her body. Or they look upon her through a magnifying glass of spite and find nothing in her but weakness and submission.

S

WOMAN'S HEART

A woman's heart will not change with time or season; even if it dies eternally, it will never perish. A woman's heart is like a field turned into a battleground; after the trees are uprooted and the grass is burned and the rocks are reddened with blood and the earth is planted with bones and skulls, it is calm and silent as if nothing has happened; for the spring and autumn come at their intervals and resume their work.

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WORDS

Wisdom is not in words;

Wisdom is meaning within words.

   
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WORSHIP

God does not like to be worshipped by an ignorant man who imitates someone else.

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WORTH

If, your knowledge teaches you not to rise above human weakness and misery and lead your fellow man on the right path, you are indeed a man of little worth and will remain such till Judgment Day.

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WRITER

Are you a writer who holds his head high above the crowd, while his brain is deep in the abyss of the past, that is filled with the tatters and useless cast-offs of the ages? If so, you are like a stagnant pool of water.

Or are you the keen thinker, who scrutinizes his inner self, discarding that which is useless, outworn and evil, but preserving that which is useful and good? If so, you are as manna to the hungry, and as cool, clear water to the thirsty.

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Y

YOUTH

Youth is a beautiful dream, on whose brightness books shed a blinding dust. Will ever the day come when the wise link the joy of knowledge to youth's dream? Will ever the day come when Nature becomes the teacher of man, humanity his book and life his school? Youth's joyous purpose cannot be fulfilled until that day comes. Too slow is our march toward spiritual elevation, because we make so little use of youth's ardor.

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Beauty belongs to youth, but the youth for whom this earth was made is naught but a dream whose sweetness is enslaved to a blindness that renders its awareness too late. Will ever the day come when the wise will band together the sweet dreams of youth and the joy of knowledge? Each is but naught when in solitary existence.

T-302

YOUTH AND AGE

Mankind divided into two long columns, one composed of the aged and bent, who support themselves on crooked staves, and as they walk on the path of Life, they pant as if they were climbing toward a mountaintop, while they are actually descending into the abyss.

And the second column is composed of youth, running as with winged feet, singing as if their throats were strung with silver strings, and climbing toward the mountaintop as though drawn by some irresistible, magic power.

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Until when shall the people remain 1asleep?

Until when shall they continue to glorify those

Who attained greatness by moments of advantage?

How long shall they ignore those who enable

Them to see the beauty of their spirit,

Symbol of peace and love?

Until when shall human beings honor the dead

And forget the living, who spend their lives

Encircled in misery, and who consume themselves

Like burning candles to illuminate the way

For the ignorant and lead them into the path of light?

   
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IMAGE GALLERY

Kahlil Gibran
Photograph by Fred Holland Day, circa 1898
The Louise Imogen Guiney Collection, Library of Congress,
Prints & Photographs Division

Kahlil Gibran
April 1913

Self Portrait and Muse, 1911 (colour litho) by Khalil Gibran
(1883-1931) Private Collection/ Archives Charmet/ The Bridgeman Art Library
Nationality / copyright status: Lebanese / out of copyright

Gibran is beloved as the author of
The Prophet
by the people of
the East as well as the West, as immortalized on this Dubai stamp.
Photograph © Golovniov /
www.fotosearch.com

The Gibran Museum,
formerly the Monastery of Mar Sarkis,
Besharri, Lebanon
Photograph © Golovniov /
www.fotosearch.com

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The content of
The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran
is composed of works originally published in:

A Treasury of Kahlil Gibran,
translated by Anthony Rizcallah Ferris and edited by Martin L. Wolf, copyright 1951 by The Citadel Press, a division of Lyle Stuart Inc. and copyright 1947 and 1949 by Philosophical Library, Inc.

A Second Treasury of Kahlil Gibran
, translated by Anthony R. Ferris, copyright © 1962 by The Citadel Press, a division of Lyle Stuart Inc. and copyright © 1957, 1958, 1959 and 1960 by Anthony R. Ferris.

A Third Treasury of Kahlil Gibran
, edited by Andrew Dib Sherfan, copyright © 1975, 1973, 1966, 1965 by Philosophical Library, Inc.

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