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And ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
and our love would not bind you nor our needs hold you.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better than you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
Your friend is your needs answered.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.
And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
The vast man in whom you are all but cells and sinews;
I only speak to you in words of that which you yourselves know in thought. And what is word knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge?
And I fain would have you remember me as a beginning.
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined.
Remembrance is a form of meeting. * Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.
Do not the spirits who dwell in the ether envy man his pain?
One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.
Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.
Seven times have I despised my soul: The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height. The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled. The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy. The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong. The fifth time when she forbore for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength. The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks. And the seventh time when she sang a song of
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There is a space between man’s imagination and man’s attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.
The significance of man is not in what he attains, but rather in what he longs to attain.
Our mind is a sponge; our heart is a stream. Is it not strange that most of us choose sucking rather than running?
You drink wine that you may be intoxicated; and I drink that it may sober me from that other wine.
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 to what he does not say.
When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.
A truth is to be known always, to be uttered sometimes.
The voice of life in me cannot reach the ear of life in you; but let us talk that we may not feel lonely.
If winter should say, “Spring is in my heart,” who would believe winter?
Every seed is a longing.
Should you really open your eyes and see, you would behold your image in all images. And should you open your ears and listen, you would hear your own voice in all voices.
Now let us play hide and seek. Should you hide in my heart it would not be difficult to find you. But should you hide behind your own shell, then it would be useless for anyone to seek you.
I would walk with all those who walk. I would not stand still to watch the procession passing by.
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper that we may record our emptiness.
If I were to choose between the power of writing a poem and the ecstasy of a poem unwritten, I would choose the ecstasy. It is better poetry. But you and all my neighbors agree that I always choose badly.
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Poetry is wisdom that enchants the heart. Wisdom is poetry that sings in the mind. If we could enchant man’s heart and at the same time sing in his mind, Then in truth he would live in the shadow of God.
All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.
