Every time I read this book, I see something that I didn't see before. I have read this at three very different points in my life, and I saw things in a different light each time. That makes this a real masterpiece. To be able to reach you so differently with the same words is beautiful.
The section called “On Love” continues to amaze me as my understanding and awareness of love deepens. The entire collection in this book resonates powerfully with me, but I was floored by the section on love. The paradox of love crowning while crucifying only becomes more true as I learn and grow. “To know the pain of too much tenderness/ To be wounded by your own understanding of love; and to bleed willingly and joyfully” are the lines that I have been particularly focused on. The more I go back to this piece of writing, the more I learn.
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Khalil Gibran said
“Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of the hearts knowledge. You would know in words that which you have always known in thought. You would touch with your fingers the naked body of the dreams.”
Khalil Gibran said
Beauty
And a poet said, “Speak to us of Beauty.”
Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us.”
And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us.”
The tired and the weary say, “beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow.”
But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.”
At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.”
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.”
In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.”
And in the summer heat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.”
All these things have you said of beauty.
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.
People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
wisdom
It's an amazing book!! I read it over and over again and now I'm working on a research project and my corpus is this book! My topic is about conceptual metaphors, so I'm going to investigate these metaphors and observe and compare the translations into Arabic and French! I'm working on the book and enjoying it and learning from it! how great can this be!!