Allyson Gari

“My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Madman

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
― Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

“Después de un tiempo,
uno aprende la sutil diferencia
entre sostener una mano
y encadenar un alma,
y uno aprende que el amor
no significa acostarse
y una compañía no significa seguridad
y uno empieza a aprender.
Que los besos no son contratos y los regalos no son promesas
y uno empieza a aceptar sus derrotas con la cabeza alta y los ojos abiertos y uno aprende a construir todos sus caminos en el hoy,
porque el terreno de mañana
es demasiado inseguro para planes...
y los futuros tienen una forma de caerse en la mitad.
Y después de un tiempo
uno aprende que si es demasiado,
hasta el calorcito del sol quema.
Así que uno planta su propio jardín
y decora su propia alma, en lugar
de esperar a que alguien le traiga flores. Y uno aprende que realmente puede aguantar, que uno realmente es fuerte,
que uno realmente vale, y uno aprende y aprende...
y con cada día uno aprende.”
― Jorge Luis Borges

“In fact, the term “holy war” originates not with Islam but with the Christian Crusaders who first used it to give theological legitimacy to what was in reality a battle for land and trade routes. “Holy war” was not a term used by Muslim conquerors, and it is in no way a proper definition of the word jihad. There are a host of words in Arabic that can be definitively translated as “war”; jihad is not one of them. The word jihad literally means “a struggle,” “a striving,” or “a great effort.” In its primary religious connotation (sometimes referred to as “the greater jihad”), it means the struggle of the soul to overcome the sinful obstacles that keep a person from God. This is why the word jihad is nearly always followed in the Quran by the phrase “in the way of God.”
― Reza Aslan, No God But God: The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam