Gibran's Sand and Foam

I AM FOREVER walking upon these shores, Betwixt the sand and the foam, The high tide will erase my foot-prints, And the wind will blow away the foam. But the sea and the shore will remain Forever.

It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life. Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in rhythmic fragments moves within me.

They say to me in their awakening, "You and the world you live in are but a grain of sand upon the infinite shore of an infinite sea." And in my dream I say to them, "I am the infinite sea, and all worlds are but grains of sand upon my shore."

Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"

The Sphinx spoke only once, and the Sphinx said, "A grain of sand is a desert, and a desert is a grain of sand; and now let us all be silent again." I heard the Sphinx, but I did not understand.

Remembrance is a form of meeting. Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.

My house says to me, "Do not leave me, for here dwells your past." And the road says to me, "Come and follow me, for I am your future." And I say to both my house and the road, "I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things."

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.

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.

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.

A woman may veil her face with a smile.

You owe more than gold to him who serves you. Give him of your heart or serve him.

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.

Once I said to a poet, "We shall not know your worth until you die." And he answered saying, "Yes, death is always the revealer. And if indeed you would know my worth it is that I have more in my heart than upon my tongue, and more in my desire than in my hand."

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.

They say the nightingale pierces his bosom with a thorn when he sings his love song. So do we all. How else should we sing?

A madman is not less a musician than you or myself; only the instrument on which he plays is a little out of tune.

No longing remains unfulfilled.

Your other self is always sorry for you. But your other self grows on sorrow; so all is well.

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.

Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.

If you would possess you must not claim.

When a man's hand touches the hand of a woman they both touch the heart of eternity.

Love is the veil between lover and lover.

Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.

Love is a word of light, written by a hand of light, upon a page of light.

If you do not understand your friend under all conditions you will never understand him.

Your mind and my heart will never agree until your mind ceases to live in numbers and my heart in the mist.

HOW SHALL MY heart be unsealed unless it be broken?

Only great sorrow or great joy can reveal your truth. If you would be revealed you must either dance naked in the sun, or carry your cross.

Should nature heed what we say of contentment no river would seek the sea, and no winter would turn to Spring. Should she heed all we say of thrift, how many of us would be breathing this air?

You are free before the sun of the day, and free before the stars of the night; And you are free when there is no sun and no moon and no star. You are even free when you close your eyes upon all there is. But you are a slave to him whom you love because you love him, And a slave to him who loves you because he loves you.

We are all beggars at the gate of the temple, and each one of us receives his share of the bounty of the King when he enters the temple, and when he goes out. But we are all jealous of one another, which is another way of belittling the King.

I stopped my guest on the threshold and said, "Nay, wipe not your feet as you enter, but as you go out."

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

I too am visited by angels and devils, but I get rid of them. When it is an angel I pray an old prayer, and he is bored; When it is a devil I commit an old sin, and he passes me by.

Those who give you a serpent when you ask for a fish, may have nothing but serpents to give. It is then generosity on their part.

If your heart is a volcano how shall you expect flowers to bloom in your hands?

A strange form of self-indulgence! There are times when I would be wronged and cheated, that I may laugh at the expense of those who think I do not know I am being wronged and cheated.

Let him who wipes his soiled hands with your garment take your garment. He may need it again; surely you would not.

Please do not whitewash your inherent faults with your acquired virtues. I would have the faults; they are like mine own.

The truly just is he who feels half guilty of your misdeeds.

Only an idiot and a genius break man-made laws; and they are the nearest to the heart of God.

If all they say of good and evil were true, then my life is but one long crime.

Oftentimes I have hated in self-defense; but if I were stronger I would not have used such a weapon.

Your saying to me, "I do not understand you," is praise beyond my worth, and an insult you do not deserve.

How mean am I when life gives me gold and I give you silver, and yet I deem myself generous.

Strange that you should pity the slow-footed and not the slow-minded, And the blind-eyed rather than the blind-hearted.

Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality. Should we all reveal our virtues we would also laugh for the same cause.

How heedless you are when you would have men fly with your wings and you cannot even give them a feather.

Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?

They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; And I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.

They spread before us their riches of gold and silver, of ivory and ebony, and we spread before them our hearts and our spirits; And yet they deem themselves the hosts and us the guests.

I would not be the least among men with dreams and the desire to fulfill them, rather than the greatest with no dreams and no desires.

The truly free man is he who bears the load of the bond slave patiently.

Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches; Yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth.

Once I spoke of the sea to a brook, and the brook thought me but an imaginative exaggerator; And once I spoke of a brook to the sea, and the sea thought me but a depreciative defamer.

The deep and the high go to the depth or to the height in a straight line; only the spacious can move in circles.

Perhaps the sea's definition of a shell is the pearl. Perhaps time's definition of coal is the diamond.
Every great man I have known had something small in his make-up; and it was that small something which prevented inactivity or madness or suicide.

I am the flame and I am the dry bush, and one part of me consumes the other part.

We are all seeking the summit of the holy moutain; but shall not our road be shorter if we consider the past a chart and not a guide?

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too self-ful to seek other than itself.

Had I filled myself with all that you know what room should I have for all that you do not know?

The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.

Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant.

A traveler am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.

I said to Life, "I would hear Death speak." And Life raised her voice a little higher and said, "You hear him now."

My friend, you and I shall remain strangers unto life, And unto one another, and each unto himself, Until the day when you shall speak and I shall listen Deeming your voice my own voice; And when I shall stand before you Thinking myself standing before a mirror.
They say to me, "Should you know yourself you would know all men." And I say, "Only when I seek all men shall I know myself."

MAN IS TWO men; one is awake in darkness, the other is asleep in light.

A hermit is one who renounces the world of fragments that he may enjoy the world wholly and without interruption.

Yestereve I saw philosophers in the market-place carrying their heads in baskets, and crying aloud, "Wisdom! Wisdom for sale!" Poor philosophers! They must needs sell their heads to feed their hearts.

Said a philosopher to a street sweeper, "I pity you. Yours is a hard and dirty task." And the street sweeper said, "Thank you, sir. But tell me what is your task?" And the philosopher answered saying, "I study man's mind, his deeds and his desires." Then the street sweeper went on with his sweeping and said with a smile, "I pity you too."

He is the true prince who finds his throne in the heart of the dervish.

They say to me, "A bird in the hand is worth ten in the bush." But I say, "A bird and a feather in the bush is worth more than ten birds in the hand." Your seeking after that feather is life with winged feet; nay, it is life itself.

Beauty shines brighter in the heart of him who longs for it than in the eyes of him who sees it.

I admire him who reveals his mind to me; I honor him who unveils his dreams. But why am I shy, and even a little ashamed before him who serves me?

Only those with secrets in their hearts could divine the secrets in our hearts.

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them.
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

When either your joy or your sorrow becomes great the world becomes small.

They say to me, "You must needs choose between the pleasures of this world and the peace of the next world." And I say to them, "I have chosen both the delights of this world and the peace of the next. For I know in my heart that the Supreme Poet wrote but one poem, and it scans perfectly, and it also rhymes perfectly."

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

When you reach your height you shall desire but only for desire; and you shall hunger, for hunger; and you shall thirst for greater thirst.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

When night comes and you too are dark, lie down and be dark with a will. And when morning comes and you are still dark stand up and say to the day with a will, "I am still dark." It is stupid to play a role with the night and the day. They would both laugh at you.

When I stood a clear mirror before you, you gazed into me and saw your image.Then you said, "I love you."But in truth you loved yourself in me.

You may sit at your window watching the passersby. And watching you may see a nun walking toward your right hand, and a prostitute toward your left hand.And you may say in your innocence, "How noble is the one and how ignoble is the other."But should you close your eyes and listen awhile you would hear a voice whispering in the ether, "One seeks me in prayer, and the other in pain. And in the spirit of each there is a bower for my spirit."

May God feed the over-abundant!

A great man has two hearts; one bleeds and the other forbears.

Should one tell a lie which does not hurt you nor anyone else, why not say in your heart that the house of his facts is too small for his fancies, and he had to leave it for larger space?

You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept.

There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.

Our God in His gracious thirst will drink us all, the dewdrop and the tear.

It is indeed misery if I stretch an empty hand to men and receive nothing; but it is hopelessness if I stretch a full hand and find none to receive.

I long for eternity because there I shall meet my unwritten poems and my unpainted pictures.

Our most sacred tears never seek our eyes.

You may have heard of the Blessed Mountain.It is the highest mountain in our world.Should you reach the summit you would have only one desire, and that to descend and be with those who dwell in the deepest valley.That is why it is called the Blessed Mountain.