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 praise, and deemed it a
virtue.
I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance
and therein lies my honor and my reward.
There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that
may only be traversed by his longing.
Paradise is there, behind that door, in the next room; but I have lost
the key.
Perhaps I have only mislaid it.
You are blind and I am deaf and dumb, so let us touch hands and
understand.
The significance of man is not in what he attains, but rather in what
he longs to attain.
Some of us are like ink and some like paper.
And if it were not for the blackness of some of us, some of us would
be dumb;
And if it were not for the whiteness of some of us, some of us would
be blind.
Give me an ear and I will give you a voice.
Our mind is a sponge; our heart is a stream.
Is it not strange that most of us choose sucking rather than running?
When you long for blessings that you may not name, and when you grieve
knowing not the cause, then indeed you are growing with all things
that grow, and rising toward your greater self.
When one is drunk with a vision, he deems his faint expression of it
the very wine.
You drink wine that you may be intoxicated; and I drink that it may
sober me from that other wine.
When my cup is empty I resign myself to its emptiness; but when it is
half full I resent its half-fulness.
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.
Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half
may reach you.
A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.
My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed
my silent virtues.
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 real in us is silent; the acquired is talkative.
The voice of life in me cannot reach the ear of life in you; but let
us talk that we may not feel lonely.
When two women talk they say nothing; when one woman speaks she
reveals all of life.
Frogs may bellow louder than bulls, but they cannot drag the plough in
the field not turn the wheel of the winepress, and of their skins you
cannot make shoes.
Only the dumb envy the talkative.
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.
It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to
understand it.
Though the wave of words is forever upon us, yet our depth is forever
silent.
Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it
divides us from truth.
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.
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