Ghaidaa Kotb > Ghaidaa's Quotes

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“When love beckons to you follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”
― Kahlil Gibran, Le Prophète

“إن شراستك كلها لإخفاء قلب هش ، لا حدود لهشاشته ، ذات يوم ستصل أصابع امرأة ما إليه وستطحنه . وإذ تجيء يومها إلي سأفهمك وحدي !”
― غسان كنفاني, رسائل غسان كنفاني إلى غادة السمان

“When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“for there is nothing heavier than compassion. Not even one's own pain weighs so heavy as the pain one feels with someone, for someone, a pain intensified by the imagination and prolonged by a hundred echoes.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“He suddenly recalled from Plato's Symposium: People were hermaphrodites until God split then in two, and now all the halves wander the world over seeking one another. Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”
― Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

“لقد كنت في رومة "ابن الافريقي" و سوف تكون في إفريقية "ابن الرومي". و أينما تكون فسيرغب بعضهم في التنقيب في جلدك و صلواتك. فأحذر أن تدغدغ غريزتهم يا بني ، و حاذر أن ترضخ لوطأة الجمهور ! فمسلماً كنت أو يهودياً أو نصرانياً عليهم أن يرتضوك كما أنت ، أو أن يفقدوك. و عندما يلوح لك ضيق عقول الناس فقل لنفسك أرض الله واسعة ، و رحبة هي يداه و قلبه. و لا تتردد قطّ في الإبتعاد الى ما وراء جميع البحار ، الى ما وراء التخوم والأوطان و المعتقدات”
― Amin Maalouf, Leo Africanus

“لا أعرف كيف أشرح لك الحب ..ولكنه شعور يجعلك تحس أنك قد عثرت على السر ..هو شيء رائع و ممتع”
― أحمد بهجت, حوار بين طفل ساذج وقط مثقف

“هذا ما ستقوله في كل مرة تحب فيها, ستقسم لها على صدقك بضوء القمر أنت تكذب لاحظ ان القمر من المخلوقات التي لاتثبت عل حال , من بدر إلى هلال إلى لا شئ أنت تقسم على حبك , انت تكذب
أو لعلك صادق مؤقتا, والصدق المؤقت لون من ألوان الكذب هو صدق في لحظة زمنية ما وهو كذب في لحظة زمنية أخرى .”
― أحمد بهجت, حوار بين طفل ساذج وقط مثقف

“الحب البشرى طفولة قلب, هو حماقة إذا تجاوز حدوده .. وإنما يصير نضجا وحكمة إذا كنت تحب المصور لا الصورة .. و ترى كل ما تراه من جمال يشرى أثرا من أثار إبداعه”
― أحمد بهجت, حوار بين طفل ساذج وقط مثقف

“قلت له: كيف تكون صوفياً وتحب نفسك لهذا الحد !؟
أنت تكذب
قال القط: الصوفي يقتل نفسه في عشق الحق حباً لنفسه وإنقاذاً لها.”
― أحمد بهجت, حوار بين طفل ساذج وقط مثقف

“I do not at all believe in human freedom in the philosophical sense... Schopenhauer’s saying, ‘A man can do what he wants, but not will what he wants,’ has been a very real inspiration to me since my youth; it has been a continual consolation in the face of life’s hardships, my own and others’, and an unfailing wellspring of tolerance. This realization mercifully mitigates the easily paralyzing sense of responsibility and prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it is conducive to a view of life which, in part, gives humour its due.”
― Albert Einstein, The World As I See It

“Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.”
― Albert Einstein, The World As I See It

“I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.”
― Albert Einstein, The World As I See It