Khalil Gibran > Quotes

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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. 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. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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 even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth......

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. 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. And think not you can direct the course of love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

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.”
― Khalil Gibran, Le Prophète

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
― Khalil Gibran

“For what is it to die, But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind? And when the Earth has claimed our limbs, Then we shall truly dance.”
― Khalil Gibran

“I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.”
― Khalil Gibran

“I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. I should not be ungrateful to these teachers.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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”
― Khalil Gibran

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Madman

“The Reality of The Other Person Lies Not In What He Reveals To You, But 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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran, Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran

“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.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. ”
― Khalil Gibran

“joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Essential Kahlil Gibran

“You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept. ”
― Khalil Gibran

“We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.”
― Khalil Gibran

“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. ”
― Khalil Gibran

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Collected Works (Everyman's Library

“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are the eternity and you are the mirror.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.”
― Khalil Gibran

“To belittle, you have to be little.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet.

“One's own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one's Maker and no one else's.”
― Khalil Gibran

“For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?

Seek him always with hours to live.

For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

And in th sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Forget not
that the earth delights
to feel your bare feet
and the winds long
to play with your hair.”
― Khalil Gibran

“The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.”
― Khalil 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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“الحب الذي تغسله العيون بدموعها يظل طاهرًا وجميلاً وخالدًا”
― Khalil 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.”
― Khalil Gibran, Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran

“Love one another,
but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.”
― Khalil Gibran, Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran

“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. ”
― Khalil Gibran

“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.”
― Khalil Gibran

“Trust in dreams, for in them is the hidden gate to eternity.”
― Khalil Gibran