Khalil Gibran

“Do not love half lovers. Do not entertain half friends. Do not indulge in works of the half talented. Do not live half a life and do not die half a death. If you choose silence, then be silent. When you speak, do so until you are finished. Do not silence yourself to say something. And do not speak to be silent. If you accept, then express it bluntly. Do not mask it. If you refuse then be clear about it for an ambiguous refusal is but a weak acceptance. Do not accept a half solution. Do not believe half truths. Do not dream half a dream. Do not fantasise about half hopes. Half a drink will not quench your thirst. Half a meal will not satisfy your hunger. Half the way will get you no where. Half an idea will bear you no results. Your other half is not the one you love. It is you in another time yet in the same space. It is you when you are not. Half a life is a life you didn't live. A word you have not said. A smile you postponed. A love you have not had. A friendship you did not know. To reach and not arrive. Work and not work. Attend only to be absent. What makes you a stranger to them closest to you and they strangers to you. The half is a mere moment of inability but you are able for you are not half a being. You are a whole that exists to live a life not half a life.”

“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”

“The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.”

“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.”

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.”

“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”

“Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.”

“If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.”

“I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.”

“Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”

“Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.”

“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.”

“Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.”

“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”

“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”

“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”

“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.”

“Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.”

“Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.”

“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”

“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.”

“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”

“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.”