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Kahlil Gibran

Paradise is there, behind that door, in
the next room; but I have lost the key.
Perhaps I have only mislaid it.

- Gibran, SandF

Man is two men; one is awake in darkness,
the other is asleep in light.

- Gibran, SandF

The Madman

You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen -- the seven masks I have fashioned and worn in seven lives -- I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, "Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves."
   Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.
   And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, "He is a madman." I looked up to behold him; the sun kissed my own naked face for the first time. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."
   Thus I became a madman.
   And 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.
   But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.

- Gibran, The Madman - His Parables and Poems

The Madman

   It was in the garden of a madhouse that I met a youth with a face pale and lovely and full of wonder.
   And I sat beside him upon the bench, and I said, "Why are you here?"
   And he looked at me in astonishment, and he said, "It is an unseemly question, yet I will answer you. My father would make of me a reproduction of himself; so also would my uncle. My mother would have me the image of her illustrious father. My sister would hold up her sea-faring husband as the perfect example for me to follow. My brother thinks I should be like him, a fine athlete.
   "And my teachers also, the doctor of philosophy, and the music-master, and the logician, they too were determined, and each would have me but a reflection of his own face in a mirror."
   "Therefore I came to this place. I find it more sane here. At least, I can be myself."
   Then of a sudden he turned to me and he said, "But tell me, were you also driven to this place by education and good counsel?"
   And I answered, "No, I am a visitor."
   And he said, "Oh, you are one of those who live in the madhouse on the other side of the wall."

- Gibran, The Wanderer - His Parables and Sayings