Kahlil Gibran Quotes

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 ~ Kahlil Gibran

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

You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept. ~ Kahlil Gibran

TORCH The human soul is but a part of a burning torch which God separated from Himself at Creation. WM-ST-67 ~ Kahlil Gibran

If the other person laughs at you, you can pity him; but if you laugh at him you may never forgive yourself.
If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
In truth the other person is your most sensitive self given another body. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. ~ Kahlil Gibran

To follow Beauty even when she shall lead you to the verge of the precipice; and though she is winged and you are wingless, and though she shall pass beyond the verge, follow her, for where Beauty is not, there is nothing; ~ Kahlil Gibran

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Love is the only freedom in this world, because it elevates the soul to a lofty station that cannot be attained by the laws and customs of human beings or conquered by the laws of nature. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Hearts that are united through the medium of sorrow will not be separated by the glory of happiness. Love ~ Kahlil Gibran

A truly religious man does not embrace a religion; and he who embraces one has no religion. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

And you would accept the seasons of your heart just as you have always accepted that seasons pass over your fields and you would watch with serenity through the winter of your grief. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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

Miserable is the woman who arises from the inattentiveness and restlessness of youth and finds herself in the home of a man showering her with his glittering gold and precious gifts and according her all the honours and grace of lavish entertainment but unable to satisfy her soul with the heavenly wine which God pours from the eyes of a man into the heart of a woman. ~ Kahlil Gibran

You have been told also that life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary. And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, and all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, and all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love; and when you work in love you bind yourself to yourself, to one another, and to God. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

One may not reach the dawn by the path of the night. ~ Kahlil Gibran

God has created several doors which open onto truth. He opens them to all those who knock on them with the hand of faith. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Yea, I shall return with the tide. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Self is a sea boundless and measureless. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed. ~ Kahlil Gibran

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Notice those gorgeous homes that represent happiness, glory and domination; they are naught but caverns of misery and distress. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, ~ Kahlil Gibran

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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

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

For affliction has opened my eyes,
and tears given me sight.
Grief has taught me the language of hearts. ~ Kahlil Gibran

After a deep silence, mingled with sweet dreams, I asked, "Speak to me of that beauty which the people interpret and define, each one according to his own conception; I have seen her honoured and worshipped in different ways and manners."
She answered, "Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive. When you meet Beauty, you feel that the hands deep within your inner self are stretched forth to bring her into the domain of your heart. It is the magnificence combined of sorrow and joy; it is the Unseen which you see, and the Vague which you understand, and the Mute which you hear−−it is the Holy of Holies that begins in yourself and ends vastly beyond your earthly imagination. ~ Kahlil Gibran

But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, ~ Kahlil Gibran

My friend, it was but a song of love out of a poet's heart, sung by every man to every woman. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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

Drink not from this cup unless you forget the past and the future, for happiness is naught but the moment." And ~ Kahlil Gibran

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom? ~ Kahlil Gibran

Hurry, oh peaceful Death, and carry me from these multitudes who left me in the dark corner of oblivion because I do not bleed the weak as they do. Come, oh gentle Death, and enfold me under your white wings, for my fellowmen are not in want of me. Embrace ~ Kahlil Gibran

And now you ask in your heart, 'How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?'
Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower,
But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee.
For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life,
And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,
And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.
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People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees. ~ Kahlil Gibran

When you see a man led to prison say in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping from a narrower prison." And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Death changes nothing but the masks that cover our faces. ~ Kahlil Gibran

I have no enemies ... but if I am to have an enemy, Let his strength be equal to mine, That truth alone may be the victor. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.

And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Man struggles to find life outside himself, unaware that the life he is seeking is within him. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Kahlil Gibran said, "When you are born, your work is placed in your heart." So, what is your work? Your purpose? Are you living it out the way your heart urges you to? ~ Wayne W. Dyer

If I were to choose between the power of writing a poem and the ecstasy of a poem unwritten, I would choose the ecstasy. It is better poetry. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Love provided me with a tongue and tears. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Now I know that here is something higher than heaven and deeper than ocean and stranger than life and death and time. I know now what I did not know before. ~ Kahlil Gibran

We are richer in material wealth than those villagers; but their spirit is a nobler spirit than ours. We ~ Kahlil Gibran

And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart,
even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection,
even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy,
even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead
are standing about you and watching. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is but today's dream. ~ Kahlil Gibran

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city. ~ Kahlil Gibran

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit, and to know that all blessed dead are standing about you and watching. Work is love made visible. ~ Kahlil Gibran

If tragedy does not ensnare a man, if affliction does not agitate him, if love does not lay him down in the cradle of dreams, then his life is like a blank, white page in the book of existence. In that year I saw the ~ Kahlil Gibran

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

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

I always quoted to my parents from Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet." Your children are not your children. They come through you, but not from you. You can give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they come from a land that you cannot enter, not even in your wildest dreams. ~ Andrew Young

You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing? ~ Kahlil Gibran

In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses,
And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all.
Aye, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains.
I mirrored the summits in you and the bending slopes, and even the passing flocks of your thoughts and your desires.
And to my silence came the laughter of your children in streams, and the longing of your youths in rivers. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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 ~ Kahlil Gibran

A great singer is he who sings our silences ~ Kahlil Gibran

For the sight of the angry weather saddens my soul and the sight of the town, sitting like a bereaved mother beneath layers of ice, oppresses my heart. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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

Look at the Darkness, giving birth to the Sun ~ Kahlil Gibran

The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Love and Doubt are not on speaking terms ~ Kahlil Gibran

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness. ~ Kahlil Gibran

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite. ~ Kahlil Gibran

attracted by the body and repelled by the spirit, ~ Kahlil Gibran

Only yesterday I was no different than them, yet I was saved. I am explaining to you the way of life of a people who say every sort of wicked thing about me because I sacrificed their friendship to gain my own soul. I left the dark paths of their duplicity and turned my eyes toward the light where there is salvation, truth, and justice. They have exiled me now from their society, yet I am content. Mankind only exiles the one whose large spirit rebels against injustice and tyranny. He who does not prefer exile to servility is not free in the true and necessary sense of freedom. ~ Kahlil Gibran

And he said, "The joy of scaring is a deep and lasting one, and I never tire of it."
Said I, after a minute of thought, "It is true; for I too have known that joy."
Said he, "Only those who are stuffed with straw can know it. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Observe the wonders as they occur around you.
Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Said a sheet of snow-white paper, "Pure was I created, and pure will I remain forever. I would rather be burnt and turn to white ashes than suffer darkness to touch me or the unclean to come near me." The ink-bottle heard what the paper was saying, and it laughed in its dark heart; but it never dared to approach her. And the multicoloured pencils heard her also, and they too never came near her. And the snow-white sheet of paper did remain pure and chaste forever, pure and chaste - and empty. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Wealth is as love in that it destroys him who withholds it but grants life to him who gives freely of it. ~ Kahlil Gibran

I have seen a face with a thousand countenances, and a face that was but a single countenance as if held in a mould.
I have seen a face whose sheen I could look through to the ugliness beneath, and a face whose sheen I had to lift to see how beautiful it was.
I have seen an old face much lined with nothing, and a smooth face in which all things were graven.
I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Would that I could gather your houses into my hand, and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Learn the words of wisdom uttered by the wise and apply them in your own life. Live them - but do not a make a show of reciting them, for he who repeats what he does not understand is no better than an ass loaded with books. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean. ~ Kahlil Gibran

Let me take you,
daughter of the fields,
to the lovers' vineyard.
The wine we press will quench the fires of longing.

You need not fear, my love,
for never have the stars on high
told what they know.
Night's thick mists swirl in these vineyards;
they will veil our secrets. ~ Kahlil Gibran

follow the steps trust them and yourself ~ Kahlil Gibran

When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense. ~ 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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

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

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. ~ 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. ~ Kahlil Gibran

The flowers of spring are winter's dreams related at the breakfast table of the angels. ~ Kahlil Gibran

But you are life and you are the veil. ~ Kahlil Gibran