Do Not Love Half Lovers - By Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

Do not love half lovers
Do not entertain half friends
Do not indulge in works of the half talented
Do not live half a life and do not die a half death

If you choose silence, then be silent
When you speak, do so until you are finished
Do not silence yourself to say something
And do not speak to be silent

If you accept, then express it bluntly
Do not mask it
If you refuse then be clear about it
for an ambiguous refusal
is but a weak acceptance

Do not accept half a solution
Do not believe half truths
Do not dream half a dream
Do not fantasize about half hopes

Half a drink will not quench your thirst
Half a meal will not satiate your hunger
Half the way will get you no where
Half an idea will bear you no results

Your other half is not the one you love
It is you in another time yet in the same space
It is you when you are not

Half a life is a life you didn’t live,
A word you have not said
A smile you postponed
A love you have not had
A friendship you did not know

To reach and not arrive
Work and not work
Attend only to be absent
What makes you a stranger to them closest to you
and they strangers to you

The half is a mere moment of inability
but you are able for you are not half a being
You are a whole that exists
to live a life not half a life.

True Manliness by Sir James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888)

A false notion of manliness leads boys astray. 

True manliness is humane.

 It says, “we who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak.”

It’s work is to protect those who cannot defend themselves;

 to stand between the tyrant and the slave, the oppressor and his victim.

 It is identical in all times with the spirit of chivalry which led the good knights to wander in search of robbers, giants, and tyrannical lords.

Those who oppressed the poor and robbed helpless woman and orphans of their rights. 

There are no tyrant barons now, 

but the spirit of tyranny and cruelty is still to be found.

 The good knight today is he who provides help for the blind, 

the deaf and dumb, and the insane. 

Who defends animals from being cruelly treated, 

rescues little children from bad usage, 

and seeks to give working woman their rights. 

He protects all these sufferers from that false manliness which is brutal to weak.

The true knights today are those who organize to prevent cruelty or to enforce laws against those who for a little gain make men drunkards. 

The giants and dragons today are those cruelties and brutalities which use their power to ill-treat those who are at their mercy.

True manliness is tender and loving.

False manliness, cold and hard, cynical and contemptuous.

The bravest and most heroic souls are usually the most loving. 

Garibaldi, Kossuth, Mazzini, the heroes of our times; 

Luther, who never feared the face of man; 

Gustavus-Adolphus and William of Orange, are examples of this union of courage and tenderness. 

Bold as lions in the defense of the right, such man in their homes and their private life have a womanly gentleness.

False manliness is unfeeling, with no kindly sympathies, rude and rough and overbearing. 

True manliness is temperate; it is moderate. 

It exercises self-control. It is capable of self-denials and renunciation.

False manliness is self-willed and self indulgent.