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.
What shall I say of him who is the pursuer playing the part of the pursued?
Let him who wipes his soiled hands with your garment take your garment. He may need it again; surely you would not.
It is a pity that money-changers cannot be good gardeners.
Please do not whitewash your inherent faults with your acquired virtues. I would have the faults; they are like mine own.
How often have I attributed to myself crimes I have never committed, so that the other person may feel comfortable in my presence.
Even the masks of life are masks of deeper mystery.
You may judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself.
Tell me now, who among us is guilty and who is unguilty?
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.
It is only when you are pursued that you become swift.
I have no enemies, O God, but if I am to have an enemy
Let his strength be equal to mine,
That truth alone may be the victor.
You will be quite friendly with your enemy when you both die.
Perhaps a man may commit suicide in self-defence.
Long ago there lived a Man who was crucified for being too loving and too lovable.
And strange to relate I met him thrice yesterday.
The first time He was asking a policeman not to take a prostitute to prison; the second time He was drinking wine with an outcast; and the third time He was having a fist-fight with a promoter inside a church.
If all they say of good and evil were true, then my life is but one long crime.
Pity is but half justice.
The only one who has been unjust to me is the one to whose brother I have been unjust.
When you see a man led to prison say in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping from a narrower prison."
And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful."
Oftentimes I have hated in self-defence; but if I were stronger I would not have used such a weapon.
How stupid is he who would patch the hatred in his eyes with the smile of his lips.
Only those beneath me can envy or hate me.
I have never been envied nor hated; I am above no one.
Only those above me can praise or belittle me.
I have never been praised nor belittled; I am below no one.
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.
When you reach the heart of life you will find yourself not higher than the felon, and not lower than the prophet.
Strange that you should pity the slow-footed and not the slow-minded,
And the blind-eyed rather than the blind-hearted.
It is wiser for the lame not to break his crutches upon the head of his enemy.
How blind is he who gives you out of his pocket that he may take out of your heart.
Life is a procession. The slow of foot finds it too swift and he steps out;
And the swift of foot finds it too slow and he too steps out.
If there is such a thing as sin some of us commit it backward following our forefathers footsteps;
And some of us commit it forward by overruling our children.
The truly good is he who is one with all those who are deemed bad.
We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.
Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigour than we do our rights.
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.
An individual is above man-made laws until he commits a crime against man-made conventions; After that he is neither above anyone nor lower than anyone.
Government is an agreement between you and myself. You and myself are often wrong.
Crime is either another name of need or an aspect of a disease.
Is there a greater fault than being conscious of the other persons faults?
If the other person laughs at you, you can pity him; but if you laugh at him you may never forgive yourself.
If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
In truth the other person is your most sensitive self given another body.
How heedless you are when you would have men fly with your wings and you cannot even give them a feather.
Once a man sat at my board and ate my bread and drank my wine and went away laughing at me.
Then he came again for bread and wine, and I spurned him;
And the angels laughed at me.
Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?
It is the honour of the murdered that he is not the murderer.
The tribune of humanity is in its silent heart, never its talkative mind.
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 fulfil them, rather than the greatest with no dreams and no desires.
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
We are all climbing toward the summit of our hearts desire. Should the other climber steal your sack and your purse and wax fat on the one and heavy on the other, you should pity him;
The climbing will be harder for his flesh, and the burden will make his way longer.
And should you in your leanness see his flesh puffing upward, help him a step; it will add to your swiftness.
You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge.
I would not listen to a conqueror preaching to the conquered.
The truly free man is he who bears the load of the bond slave patiently.
A thousand years ago my neighbour said to me, "I hate life, for it is naught but a thing of pain."
And yesterday I passed by a cemetery and saw life dancing upon his grave.
Strife in nature is but disorder longing for order.
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.
How narrow is the vision that exalts the busyness of the ant above the singing of the grasshopper.
The highest virtue here may be the least in another world.
The deep and the high go to the depth or to the height in a straight line; only the spacious can move in circles.
If it were not not for our conception of weights and measures we would stand in awe of the firefly as we do before the sun.
A scientist without imagination is a butcher with dull knives and out-worn scales.
But what would you, since we are not all vegetarians?
When you sing the hungry hears you with his stomach.
Death is not nearer to the aged than to the new-born; neither is life.
If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully; otherwise keep silent, for there is a man in our neighbourhood who is dying.
Mayhap a funeral among men is a wedding feast among the angels.
A forgotten reality may die and leave in its will seven thousand actualities and facts to be spent in its funeral and the building of a tomb.
In truth we talk only to ourselves, but sometimes we talk loud enough that others may hear us.
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
If the Milky Way were not within me how should I have seen it or known it?
Unless I am a physician among physicians they would not believe that I am an astronomer.
Perhaps the seas definition of a shell is the pearl.
Perhaps times definition of coal is the diamond.
Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
There is neither religion nor science beyond beauty.
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.
The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.
I would not believe that a man is mediocre simply because he kills the criminals and the prophets.
Tolerance is love sick with the sickness of haughtiness.
Worms will turn; but is it not strange that even elephants will yield?
A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.
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 mountain; 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-full 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?
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
A bigot is a stone-leaf orator.
The silence of the envious is too noisy.
When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.
If you can see only what light reveals and hear only what sound announces,
Then in truth you do not see nor do you hear.
A fact is a truth unsexed.
You cannot laugh and be unkind at the same time.
The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.
A shy failure is nobler than an immodest success.
Dig anywhere in the earth and you will find a treasure, only you must dig with the faith of a peasant.
Said a hunted fox followed by twenty horsemen and a pack of twenty hounds, "Of course they will kill me. But how poor and how stupid they must be. Surely it would not be worth while for twenty foxes riding on twenty asses and accompanied by twenty wolves to chase and kill one man."
It is the mind in us that yields to the laws made by us, but never the spirit in us.
A traveller am I and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.
A woman protested saying, "Of course it was a righteous war. My son fell in it."
I said to Life, "I would hear Death speak."
And Life raised her voice a little higher and said, "You hear him now."
When you have solved all the mysteries of life you long for death, for it is but another mystery of life.
Birth and death are the two noblest expressions of bravery.
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.
There lies a green field between the scholar and the poet; should the scholar cross it he becomes a wise man; should the poet cross it, he becomes a prophet.
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 mans 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 who listens to truth is not less than he who utters truth.
No man can draw the line between necessities and luxuries. Only the angels can do that, and the angels are wise and wistful.
Perhaps the angels are our better thought in space.
He is the true prince who finds his throne in the heart of the dervish.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
In truth you owe naught to any man. You owe all to all men.
All those who have lived in the past live with us now. Surely none of us would be an ungracious host.
He who longs the most lives the longest.
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.
There are only two elements here, beauty and truth; beauty in the hearts of lovers, and truth in the arms of the tillers of the soil.
Great beauty captures me, but a beauty still greater frees me even from 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 honour him who unveils his dreams. But why am I shy, and even a little ashamed before him who serves me?
The gifted were once proud in serving princes.
Now they claim honour in serving paupers.
The angels know that too many practical men eat their bread with the sweat of the dreamers brow.
Wit is often a mask. If you could tear it you would find either a genius irritated or cleverness juggling.
The understanding attributes to me understanding and the dull, dullness. I think they are both right.
Only those with secrets in their hearts could divine the secrets in our hearts.
He who would share your pleasure but not your pain shall lose the key to one of the seven gates of Paradise.