"You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;"
— Khalil Gibran (The Prophet)

"Your daily life is your temple and your religion."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense."
— Khalil Gibran

"The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather what he does not say."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"
How shall my heart be unsealed
unless it be broken?"
— Kahlil Gibrán

""You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.""
— Kahlil Gibran (Prophet)

"When life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"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"
— Kahlil Gibrán

"And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness.

But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.

They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer."
— Kahlil Gibrán

"I discovered the secret of the sea in meditation upon the dewdrop."
— Kahlil Gibran

"Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. "
— Kahlil Gibrán

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?"
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi (El Masnavi)

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there.

When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about."
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless ;
'Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.
I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call. "
— Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

"You can't imagine how
I've looked for something for you.
Nothing seemed appropriate. You don't
take gold down into a goldmine, or a
drop of water to the Sea of Oman!

Everything I thought of was like
bringing cumin seed to Kirmanshah where
cumin comes from.

You have all seeds in your barn. You
even have my love and my soul, so I
can't even bring those.

I've brought you a mirror. Look at
yourself, and remember me."
— Jelaluddin rumi

"The wise man believes profoundly in silence, the sign of a perfect equilibrium. Silence is the absolute poise or balance of body, mind, and spirit. The man who preserves his selfhood ever calm and unshaken by the storms of existence - not a leaf, as it were, astir on the tree, not a ripple upon the surface of the shinning pool - his, in the mind of the unlettered sage, is the ideal attitude and conduct of life. Silence is the cornerstone of character.
"
— Ohiyesa, Wahpeton Santee Sioux

"It was our belief that the love of possessions is a weakness to be overcome. Its appeal is to the material part, and if allowed its way, it will in time disturb one's spiritual balance. Therefore, children must early learn the beauty of generosity. They are taught to give what they prize most, that they may taste the happiness of giving.
"
— Ohiyesa, Wahpeton Santee Sioux

"Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery, teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my sacred space and love beyond my fear, and thus walk in balance with the passing of each glorious sun.
"
— American Indian Lakota Prayer

"No answer is also an answer."
— American Indian Proverb

"Good storytelling is one thing rural whites and Indians have in common. But native Americans have learned through harsh necessity that people who survive encroachment by another culture need story to survive. And a storytelling tradition is something Plains people share with both ancient and contemporary monks; we learn our ways of being and reinforce our values by telling tales about each other."
— Kathleen Norris (Dakota: A Spiritual Geography)

"Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way.
"
— Ancient American Indian Saying

"forgiving our fathers
by dick lourie

maybe in a dream: he's in your power
you twist his arm but you're not sure it was
he that stole your money you feel calmer
and you decide to let him go free

or he's the one (as in a dream of mine)
I must pull from the water but I never
knew it or wouldn't have done it until
I saw the street-theater play so close up
I was moved to actions I'd never before taken

maybe for leaving us too often or
forever when we were little maybe
for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous because there seemed
never to be any rage there at all

for marrying or not marrying our mothers
for divorcing or not divorcing our mothers
and shall we forgive them for their excesses
of warmth or coldness shall we forgive them

for pushing or leaning for shutting doors
for speaking only through layers of cloth
or never speaking or never being silent

in our age or in theirs or in their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it -
if we forgive our fathers what is left
"
— Dick Lourie Quoted in Sherman Alexie's Smoke Signals

"None but ourselves can free our minds."
— Bob Marley

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery.
None but ourselves can free our minds."
— Bob Marley

""If you let yourself be truly seen, then you can be truly loved.""
— Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK) (The Bodacious Book of Succulence: Daring to Live Your Succulent Wild LIife)

"A succulent wild woman is one of any age who feels free to fully express herself in every dimension of her life."
— Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK) (Succulent Wild Woman)

"Use your internal grandmother for guidance and advice."
— Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy (SARK) (Succulent Wild Woman)

""It is time to speak your Truth. Create your community, be good to each other. And do not look outside yourself for the leader. This could be a good time! ~ "There is a river flowing now very fast. It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid. They will try to hold onto the shore. They will feel they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly. Know the river has its own destination. ~ The Elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open and our heads above water. And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate.""
— Hopi Elder Prayer

"Behold, my brothers, the spring has come; the earth has received the embraces of the sun and we shall soon see the results of that love! Every seed has awakened and so has all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves, to inhabit this land.
"
— Tatanka Yotanka (Sitting Bull), Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux

"Tout passe; tout casse; tout lasse.

(All things pass; all things break; all things wear away)

"
— French proverb

"If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people."
— Chinese proverb

"Women hold up half the sky."
— Chinese Proverb

"A wife is sought for her virture, a concubine for her beauty."
— Chinese Proverb

"Drinking a daily cup of tea will surely starve the apothecary. "
— Chinese Proverb

""Respect for ones parents is the highest duty of civil life." "
— Chinese Proverb