Gibran Khalil Gibran (1883–1931), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist. He is best known as the author of The Prophet, which was first published in the United States in 1923 and has since become one of the best-selling books of all time, having been translated into more than 100 languages.
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| You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts. ― Kahlil Gibran |
Here is a collection of Kahlil Gibran most famous quotes: Kahlil Gibran quotes about life, death, love, romance, happiness, friendship, wisdom, strength, beauty and joy. Kahlil Gibran Quotes Full of Wisdom and Inspiration. Quotes and sayings on lost love, truth, freedom, poetry, delight, heart, souls, sorrow, suffering and weeping by Kahlil Gibran.
Gibran Khalil Gibran Quotes and Sayings
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.
One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.
March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.
Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.
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| If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were. ― Kahlil Gibran |
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Your children are not your children. They are 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 thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.
Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater." But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.
We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone.... but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
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| Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness. ― Kahlil Gibran |
To belittle, you have to be little.
Hearts united in pain and sorrow will not be separated by joy and happiness. Bonds that are woven in sadness are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure. Love that is washed by tears will remain eternally pure and faithful.
If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.
I am ignorant of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
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.
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy.
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.
The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
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| Life without liberty is like a body without spirit. ― Kahlil Gibran |
When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.
To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.
You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.
It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.
No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow.
Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.
The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.
Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
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| Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. ― Kahlil Gibran |
Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.
The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.
I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.
Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.
What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.
Love is trembling happiness.
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.
Love.... it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
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. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise on your lips.
Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
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.
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| Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. ― Kahlil Gibran |
Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Trust in dreams, for in them is the hidden gate to eternity.
Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.
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?
One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.
If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.
Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.' Say not, 'I have found the path of the soul.' Say rather, 'I have met the soul walking upon my path.' For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.
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.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?
Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
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| When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ― Kahlil Gibran |
In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things, does the heart find its morning and is refreshed.
Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.
When you love you should not think you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
Work is love made visible. And if you can't work with love, but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy.
A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
The just is close to the people's heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.
When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.
Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Travel and tell no one, live a true love story and tell no one, live happily and tell no one, people ruin beautiful things.
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| Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity. ― Kahlil Gibran |
Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names. It was love lashed by its own self that spoke. It was pride half slain that fluttered in the dust. It was my hunger for your love that raged from the housetop, while my own love, kneeling in silence, prayed your forgiveness.
Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.
And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart: Your seeds shall live in my body, and the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart, and your fragrance shall be my breath, and together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.
My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.
All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.
There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.
Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.
Darkness may hide the trees and the flowers from the eyes but it cannot hide love from the soul.
Your friend is your needs answered.
We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.
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.
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
You have your ideology and I have mine.
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
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| Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. ― Kahlil Gibran |
They say: 'If a man knew himself, he would know all mankind.' I say: 'If a man loved mankind, he would know something of himself.'
For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.
Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.
When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.
Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.
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.
Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.
Is not the beautiful moon, that inspires poets, the same moon which angers the silence of the sea with a terrible roar?
Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.
Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death.
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.
Tell your secret to the wind, but don't blame it for telling the trees.
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| One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life. ― Kahlil Gibran |
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
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.
Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.
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.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.
Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
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.
Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.
Modern civilization has made woman a little wiser, but it has increased her suffering because of man's covetousness. The woman of yesterday was a happy wife, but the woman of today is a miserable mistress. In the past she walked blindly in the light, but now she walks open-eyed in the dark. She was beautiful in her ignorance, virtuous in her simplicity, and strong in her weakness. Today she has become ugly in her ingenuity, superficial and heartless in her knowledge. Will the day ever come when beauty and knowledge, ingenuity and virtue, and weakness of body and strength of spirit will be united in a woman?
Do not fear the thorns in your path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.
Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.
Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand.
I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.
Words are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness.
When life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.
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.
They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care, nor your nights without a want and a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.
Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.
Only love and death will change all things.
The feelings we live through in love and in loneliness are simply, for us, what high tide and low tide are to the sea.
All that spirits desire, spirits attain.
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.
Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.
Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
He who seeks ecstasy in love should not complain of suffering.
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
When you were a wandering desire in the mist, I too was there, a wandering desire. Then we sought one another, and out of our eagerness dreams were born. And dreams were time limitless, and dreams were space without measure.
The earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding; and to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.
We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.
Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.
Love provided me with a tongue and tears.
Love and Doubt are not on speaking terms.
Love descends upon our souls by the will of God and not by the demand or the plea of the individual.
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconsistencies.
Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.
Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
You may chain my hands, you may shackle my feet; you may even throw me into a dark prison; but you shall not enslave my thinking, because it is free!
The philosopher's soul dwells in his head, the poet's soul is in his heart; the singer's soul lingers about his throat, but the soul of the dancer abides in all her body.
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
Love is quivering happiness.
If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand.
If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.
Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.
I discovered the secret of the sea in meditation upon a dewdrop.
Every man loves two women; the one is the creation of his imagination and the other is not yet born.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
I would not exchange the laughvter of my heart for the fortunes of the multitudes.
I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath; I am the memory of a moment of happiness; I am the last gift of the living to the dead; I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow.
You cannot laugh and be unkind at the same time.
How beautiful to find a heart that loves you, without asking you for anything, but to be okay.
We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.
When you reach the heart of life you shall find beauty in all things, even in the eyes that are blind to beauty.
The true wealth of a nation lies not in it's gold or silver but in it's learning, wisdom and in the uprightness of its sons.
Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.
Passionate love is a quenchless thirst.
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.
Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
Let your home be you mast and not your anchor.
Where are you now, my beloved? Do you hear my weeping From beyond the ocean? Do you understand my need? Do you know the greatness of my patience?
Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
All things in this vast universe exist in you, with you, and for you.
If I accept the sunshine and warmth, then I must also accept the thunder and lightning.
He who is more mindful of one, loses the love and the faith of both.
But 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.
I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us.
Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.
Happiness is a vine that takes root and grows within the heart, never outside it.
We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.
And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive.