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 see but your shadow when you turn your back to the sun.
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.
You cannot consume beyond your appetite. The other half of the loaf belongs to the other person, and there should remain a little bread for the chance guest.
If it were not for your guests all houses would be graves.
Said a gracious wolf to a simple sheep, “Will you not honor our house with a visit?”
And the sheep answered, “We would have been honored to visit your house if it were not in your stomach.”
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.
You are indeed charitable when you give, and while giving, turn your face away so that you may not see the shyness of the receiver.
The difference between the richest man and the poorest is but a day of hunger and an hour of thirst.
We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays.
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.
After all this is not a bad prison; but I do not like this wall between my cell and the next prisoner's cell;
Yet I assure you that I do not wish to reproach the warder not the Builder of the prison.
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.
Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.
You are truly a forgiver when you forgive murderers who never spill blood, thieves who never steal, and liars who utter no falsehood.
He who can put his finger upon that which divides good from evil is he who can touch the very hem of the garment of God.
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.
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-defense.
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.
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.”
Once every hundred years Jesus of Nazareth meets Jesus of the Christian in a garden among the hills of Lebanon. And they talk long; and each time Jesus of Nazareth goes away saying to Jesus of the Christian, “My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree.”
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?
Behind every closed door is a mystery sealed with seven seals.
Waiting is the hoofs of time.
What if trouble should be a new window in the Eastern wall of your house?
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.
You are but a fragment of your giant self, a mouth that seeks bread, and a blind hand that holds the cup for a thirsty mouth.
If you would rise but a cubit above race and country and self you would indeed become godlike.
If I were you I would not find fault with the sea at low tide.
It is a good ship and our Captain is able; it is only your stomach that is in disorder.
Should you sit upon a cloud you would not see the boundary line between one country and another, nor the boundary stone between a farm and a farm.
It is a pity you cannot sit upon a cloud.
Seven centuries ago seven white doves rose from a deep valley flying to the snow-white summit of the mountain. One of the seven men who watched the flight said, “I see a black spot on the wing of the seventh dove.”
Today the people in that valley tell of seven black doves who flew to the summit of the snowy mountain.
In the autumn I gathered all my sorrows and buried them in my garden.
And when April returned and spring came to wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful flowers unlike all other flowers.
And my neighbors came to behold them, and they all said to me, “When autumn comes again, at seeding time, will you not give us of the seeds of these flowers that we may have them in our gardens?”
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.
Art is a step from nature toward the Infinite.
A work of art is a mist carved into an image.
Even the hands that make crowns of thorns are better than idle hands.
Our most sacred tears never seek our eyes.
Every man is the descendant of every king and every slave that ever lived.
If the great-grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, would he not have stood in awe of himself?
Was the love of Judas' mother of her son less than the love of Mary for Jesus?
There are three miracles of our Brother Jesus not yet recorded in the Book: the first that He was a man like you and me, the second that He had a sense of humour, and the third that He knew He was a conqueror though conquered.
Crucified One, you are crucified upon my heart; and the nails that pierce your hands pierce the walls of my heart.
And tomorrow when a stranger passes by this Golgotha he will not know that two bled here.
He will deem it the blood of one man.
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.
Every thought I have imprisoned in expression I must free by my deeds.