The philosopher’s soul dwells in his head, the poet’s soul is in his heart; the singer’s soul lingers about his throat, but the soul of the dancer abides in all her body.

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created...

For Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended,is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.

Der Gedanke ist ein Vogel, der Raum braucht und in einem Käfig von Worten zwar seine Flügel ausbreiten, aber nicht fliegen kann.

Arbeit ist sichtbar gemachte Liebe.

I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a...

My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

I am forever walking upon these shores,Betwixt the sand and the foam,The high tide will erase my food prints,And the wind will blow away the foam,But the sea and the shore will remain forever.

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...

I have seen a face with a thousand countenances, and a face that was but a single countenance as if held in a mould. I have seen a face whose sheen I could look through...

Man will be on the path to perfection when he feels that he is one with space that knows no bounds and with the ocean that has no shores; when he becomes that undying fire,...

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark...

But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which...

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a...

Schönheit ist kein Bedürfnis, sondern eine Verzückung.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,the more joy you can contain.Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?And is not the lute that...

To belittle, you have to be little.

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

I tell you as well as myself: what we see with our own eyes is nothing other than a cloud concealing what we should perceive with our inner sight, while what we listen to with...

One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.

Das freieste Lied dringt nicht durch Gitter und Draht.

[W]enn ihr nicht mit Liebe, sondern nur mit Widerwillen arbeiten könnt, lasst besser eure Arbeit […] und nehmt Almosen von denen, die mit Freude arbeiten.

Long ago you were a dream in your mother’s sleep, and then she awoke to give you birth.

Happiness is a myth we seek,If manifested surely irks;Like river speeding to the plain,On its arrival slows and murks.For man is happy only inHis aspiration to the heights;When he attains his goal, he coolsAnd longs...

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.

Call me not wise unless you call all men wise. A young fruit am I, still clinging to the branch and it was only yesterday that I was a blossom. And call none among you...

And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.

Smile, my beloved, like the gold smiles from my father’s coffers.

Generosity is not giving me that which I need that you do, but it is giving me that which you need more that I do.

Only yesterday I was no different than them, yet I was saved. I am explaining to you the way of life of a people who say every sort of wicked thing about me because I...

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,...

It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to understand it.

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.

Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names.It was love lashed by its own self that spoke. It was pride half slain that fluttered in...

Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper,That we may record our emptiness.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.These things move within you as lights...

My comrade, my companion”-for I would not have thee see my Hell. The flame would burn thy eyesight and the smoke would crowd thy nostrils. And I love my Hell too well to have thee...

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

Die Vernunft ist, wenn sie allein waltet, eine einengende Kraft; und unbewacht ist die Leidenschaft eine Flamme, die bis zur Selbstzerstörung brennt.

I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.