Kahlil Gibran Quotes

These things he said in words. But much in his heart remained unsaid.
For he himself could not speak his deeper secret.

You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

Said a hunted fox followed by twenty horsemen and a pack of twenty hounds, "Of course they will kill me. But how poor and how stupid they must be. Surely it would not be worth while for twenty foxes riding on twenty asses and accompanied by twenty wolves to chase and kill one man.

The lust for comfort kills the passions of the soul.

Words are timeless. You should utter them or write them with a knowledge of their timelessness.

Believing is a fine thing, but putting those beliefs into execution is a test of strength.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

Only an idiot and a genius break man-made laws; and they are the nearest to the heart of God.

Theban who acquires his wealth by inheritance builds his mansion with the weak poor's money. The clergyman erects his temple upon the graves and bones of the devoted worshippers. The prince grasps the fellah's arms while the priest empties his pocket; the ruler looks upon the sobs of the fields with frowning face, and the bishop consoles them with his smile, and between the frown of the tiger and the smile of the wolf the flock is perished; the ruler claims himself as king if the law, and the priest as the representative if god, and between these two, the bodies are destroyed and the souls wither into nothing.

Shall I come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean.

Saying this, he turned his head toward the window as if he were trying to solve the problems of human existence by concentrating on the beauty of the universe.

Happiness is a vine that takes root and grows within the heart, never outside it.

In the summer heat the reapers say, We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.

We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.

And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

Your other self is always sorry for you. But your other self grows on sorrow, so all is well

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 God opens the doors of truth to him who knocks with the hand of faith

Life is deep and high and distant; and though only your vast vision can reach even her feet, yet she is near; and though only the breath of your breath reaches her heart, the shadow of your shadow crosses her face, and the echo of your faintest cry becomes a spring and an autumn in her breast.
And life is veiled and hidden, even as your greater self is hidden and veiled. Yet when Life speaks, all the winds become words; and when she speaks again, the smiles upon your lips and the tears in your eyes turn also into words. When she sings, the deaf hear and are held; and when she comes walking, the sightless behold her and are amazed and follow her in wonder and astonishment. - The Garden of The Prophet

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.

I am a stranger to myself, and when I hear my tongue speak, my ears wonder over my voice; I see my inner self smiling, crying, braving, and fearing; and my existence wonders over my substance while my soul interrogates my heart; but I remain unknown, engulfed by tremendous silence.
My thoughts are strangers to my body, and as I stand before the mirror, I see something in my face which my soul does not see, and I find in my eyes what my inner self does not find.

Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.

Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.

Knowledge is a light, enriching
The warmth of life, and all may
Partake who seek it out; but you,
My Countrymen, seek out darkness
And flee the light, awaiting the
Coming of water from the rock,
And your nation's misery is your
Crime ... I do not forgive you
Your sins, for you know what you are doing.

I love you, my brother, whoever you are - whether you worship in a church, kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque. You and I are children of one faith, for the diverse paths of religion are fingers of the loving hand of the one supreme being, a hand extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, eager to receive all.

The poet is a pure spring from which all thirsty souls may drink.

So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.

A bigot is a stone-deaf orator.

IF any of you would bring to judgment the unfaithful wife, Let him also weigh the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.

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.

And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

Love provided me with a tongue and tears.

Yestereve I saw philosophers in the market-place carrying their heads in baskets, and crying aloud, "Wisdom! Wisdom for sale!"
Poor philosophers! They must needs sell their heads to feed their hearts. Said a philosopher to a street sweeper, "I pity you. Yours is a hard and dirty task."
And the street sweeper said, "Thank you, sir. But tell me what is your task?"
And the philosopher answered saying, "I study man's mind, his deeds and his desires."
Then the street sweeper went on with his sweeping and said with a smile, "I pity you too.

For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?

Pleasure is a freedom-song,
But it is not freedom.
It is the blossoming of your desires,
But it is not their fruit.
It is a depth calling unto a height,
But it is not the deep nor the high.
It is the caged taking wing,
But it is not space encompassed.
Aye, in very truth, pleasure is a freedom-song.
And I fain would have you sing it with fullness of heart; yet I would not have you lose your hearts in the singing.

You are the way and the wayfarers.

Smile, my beloved, like the gold smiles from my father's coffers.

Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.

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.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

To belittle, you have to be little.

Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth. It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all.

Come, let us drink the last raindrop tears from a narcissus cup and fill our souls with the songs of larks.

Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.

You are my brother and I love you. I love you worshipping in your church, kneeling in your temple, and praying in your mosque. You and I and all are children of one religion, for the varied paths of religion are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being, extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, anxious to receive all.

Hypocrisy is your religion, and
Falsehood is your life, and
Nothingness is your ending; why,
Then, are you living? Is not
Death the sole comfort of the
Miserables?

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

You talk when you cease
to be at peace with your
thoughts.

Look at the Darkness, giving birth to the Sun

Oftentimes I have hated in self-defense; but if I were stronger I would not have used such a weapon.

It is life in quest of life in bodies that fear the grave.

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking.
Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another ruler with trumpetings again.
Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle.
Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

But you are life and you are the veil.

Love gives nothing but itself, and takes nothing but from itself. Love does not possess, nor would it be possessed. And do not think that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

They come through you but not from you,

The cup does not entice the lips unless the wine's colour is seen through the transparent crystal.

They spread before us their riches of gold and silver, of ivory and ebony, and we spread before them our hearts and our spirits.;
And yet they deem themselves the hosts and us the guests.

If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.

I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.

My life is quiet. There is little beside working and walking. I have no desire to see people, and I feel as though I am waiting for something new and strange which will burn the unburnt side of my soul.

We measure time according to the movement of countless suns; and they measure time by little machines in their little pockets.
Now tell me, how could we ever meet at the same place and the same time?

And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept.

For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world.

Sorrow is just a wall between two gardens.

I long for eternity because there I shall meet my unwritten poems and my unpainted pictures.

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

Poetry is not an opinion expressed. It is a song that rises from a bleeding wound or a smiling mouth.

Oh, heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.

The things which the child loves remain in the domain of the heart until old age. The most beautiful thing in life is that our souls remain hovering over the places where we once enjoyed ourselves. I am one of those who remembers those places regardless of distance or time.

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.
But in some of you that longing is a torrent rushing with might to the sea, carrying the secrets of the hillsides and the songs of the forest.
And in others it is a flat stream that loses itself in angles and bends and lingers before it reaches the shore.
But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, "Wherefore are you slow and halting?"
For the truly good ask not the naked, "Where is your garment?" nor the houseless, "What has befallen your house?

Forget not that the earth likes to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Khalil Gibran

You need not fear, my love,
for never have the stars on high
told what they know.

I said to Life, I would hear Death speak. And Life raised her voice a little higher and said, You hear him now.

Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

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.

Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing
we see today, made by past generation, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an
impulse in the heart of a woman. The revolutions that shed so much blood and turned men's minds toward
liberty were the idea of one man who lived in the midst of thousands of men. The devastating wars which
destroyed empires were a thought that existed in the mind of an individual. The supreme teachings that
changed the course of humanity were the ideas of a man whose genius separated him from his environment

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.

Seven times have I despised my soul: The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.

When thou ascendest to thy Heaven I descend to my Hell - even then thou callest to me across the unbridgeable gulf, "My companion, my comrade," and I call back to thee, "My comrade, my companion" - for I would not have thee see my Hell. The flame would burn thy eyesight and the smoke would crowd thy nostrils. And I love my Hell too well to have thee visit it. I would be in Hell alone.

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

What are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?

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.

You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.
Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.
For those who limp go not backwards.
But you who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.

A great singer is he who sings our silences

If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.
You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.
Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.

Yet 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.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?
And is not time even as love is, undivided and spaceless?

But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,
And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.

A pearl is a temple built by pain around a grain of sand.

What longing built our bodies and around what grains?

We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions.

Seven times I have despised my soul:
The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height.
The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled.
The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.
The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.
The fifth time when she forbode for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength.
The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.
And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise, and deemed it a virtue.

You tell me that you fear love; why, my little one? Do you fear the light of the sun? Do you fear the ebb and flow of the sea? Do you fear the dawning of the day? Do you fear the advent of spring? I wonder why you fear love? ... do not fear love; do not fear love, friend of my heart. We must surrender to it in spite of what it may bring in the way of pain, of desolation, of longing and in spite of all perplexity and bewilderment.

When you love you should not think you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?

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.

No matter how busy a man is, he is never too busy to stop and talk about how busy he is.

Should you sit upon a cloud you would not see the boundary line between one country and another, nor the boundary stone between a farm and a farm.
It is a pity you cannot sit upon a cloud.

Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.