As one's gifts increase, his friends decrease.

What shall I say of the man who slaps me when I kiss him on the face and who kisses my foot when I slap him?

Some souls are like sponges. You cannot squeeze anything out of them except what they have sucked from you.

The ill-intentioned always fall short of achieving their purpose.

The supreme state of the soul is to obey even that against which the mind rebels. And the lowest state of the mind is to revolt against that which the soul obeys.

When, in misfortune, you seek commiseration from your neighbor, you give him a part of your heart. If he is good-hearted, he will thank you; if he is hard-hearted, he will scorn you.

Strange that virtue in me brings me nothing but harm, while my evil has never been to my disadvantage. Nevertheless, I continue fanatic in my virtue.

Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.

The difficulty we meet in reaching our goal is the shortest path to it.

Inspiration is in seeing a part of the whole with the part of the whole in you.

They tell me 'If you find a slave asleep, don't wake him up; he may be dreaming of freedom'. And I reply 'If you find a slave asleep, wake him and talk to him about freedom.'

Compulsion is a mirror in which he who looks for long will see his inner self endeavouring to commit suicide.

History does not repeat itself except in the minds of those who do not know history.

He who requires urging to do a noble act will never accomplish it.

That which you think is ugly is but the treachery of the outer directed at the inner self.

Who can separate himself from his sorrows and solitude without suffering in his heart?

He who comes clothed in his best at his neighbor's funeral will wear rags at his son's wedding.

Distinguish between the gift that is an insult and the gift that is a token of respect.

No one believes the sincere except the honest.

How ugly is affection that lays a stone on one side of a structure and destroys a wall on the other side!

Someone gave me a lamb and I gave him a she-camel. Then he offered me two lambs and I repaid him with two she-camels. Later he came to my sheepfold and counted my nine camels. Then he gave me nine lambs.

The souls of some people are like school blackboards on which Time writes signs, rules, and examples that are immediately erased with a wet sponge.

Your self consists of two selves; one imagines that he knows himself and the other that the people know him.

What shall I say about him who borrows from me the money to buy a sword with which to attack me?

The black said to the white, 'If you were grey I would be lenient with you'.

The coarseness of some is preferable to the gentleness of others.

I shall follow the path to wherever my destiny and my mission for Truth shall take me.

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Un mare saru'mana pentru scumpa de Antoanela, de la care am primit cadou cartea "The Khalil Gibran Reader" acum cativa ani.