The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.
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My friends and my road-fellows, pity the nation that is full of beliefs and empty of religion. Pity the nation that wears a cloth it does not weave, eats a bread it does not harvest, and drinks a wine that flows not from its own winepress. Pity the nation that acclaims the bully as hero, and that deems the glittering conqueror bountiful. Pity the nation that raises not its voice save when it walks in a funeral, boasts not except among its ruins, and will rebel not save when its neck is laid between the sword and the block. Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking. Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another with trumpetings again. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.
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What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
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Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you, For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows might go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
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Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
Love
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Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
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Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
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Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
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If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.
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Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
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Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
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In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans.
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Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?
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Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.
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If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.
Religion
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The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
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I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
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If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.
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You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
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The teacher gives not of his wisdom, but rather of his faith and lovingness.
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The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.
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Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.
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Half of what I say is meaningless but I say it so that the other half may reach you.
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No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
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Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
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Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
Faith
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When you have solved all the mysteries of life you long for death, for it is but another mystery of life.
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Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
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Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
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Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds.
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