The Complete Works of Kahlil Gibran: All poems and short stories (Global Classics)

by Kahlil Gibran

How shall my heart be unsealed unless it be broken?

You see but your shadow when you turn your back to the sun.

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.

We often borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts to our yesterdays.

You will be quite friendly with your enemy when you both die.

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

It is wiser for the lame not to break his crutches upon the head of his enemy.

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

Strange that we all defend our wrongs with more vigor than we do our rights.

Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality. Should we all reveal our virtues we would also laugh for the same cause.

Government is an agreement between you and myself. You and myself are often wrong.

Is there a greater fault than being conscious of the other person’s faults?

Once a man sat at my board and ate my bread and drank my wine and went away laughing at me. Then he came again for bread and wine, and I spurned him; And the angels laughed at me.

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.

You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge.

How narrow is the vision that exalts the busyness of the ant above the singing of the grasshopper.

Death is not nearer to the aged than to the new-born; neither is life.

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

Tolerance is love sick with the sickness of haughtiness.

A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

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

An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.

If you can see only what light reveals and hear only what sound announces, Then in truth you do not see nor do you hear.

>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.”

He who listens to truth is not less than he who utters truth.

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

We choose our joys and our sorrows long before we experience them.

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

Said a skunk to a tube-rose, “See how swiftly I run, while you cannot walk nor even creep.” Said the tube-rose to the skunk, “Oh, most noble swift runner, please run swiftly!”

Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.

Once every hundred years Jesus of Nazareth meets Jesus of the Christian in a garden among the hills of Lebanon. And they talk long; and each time Jesus of Nazareth goes away saying to Jesus of the Christian, “My friend, I fear we shall never, never agree.”

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

Upon a day Beauty and Ugliness met on the shore of a sea. And they said to one another, “Let us bathe in the sea.” Then they disrobed and swam in the waters. And after a while Ugliness came back to shore and garmented himself with the garments of Beauty and walked away. And Beauty too came out of the sea, and found not her raiment, and she was too shy to be naked, therefore she dressed herself with the raiment of Ugliness. And Beauty walked her way. And to this very day men and women mistake the one for the other. Yet some there are who have beheld the face of Beauty, and they know her notwithstanding her garments. And some there be who know the face of Ugliness, and the cloth conceals him not from their eyes.

Once there lived a man among the hills who possessed a statue wrought by an ancient master. It lay at his door face downward and he was not mindful of it. One day there passed by his house a man from the city, a man of knowledge, and seeing the statue he inquired of the owner if he would sell it. The owner laughed and said, “And pray who would want to buy that dull and dirty stone?” The man from the city said, “I will give you this piece of silver for it.” And the other man was astonished and delighted. The statue was removed to the city, upon the back of and elephant. And after many moons the man from the hills visited the city, and as he walked the streets he saw a crowd before a shop, and a man with a loud voice was crying, “Come ye in and behold the most beautiful, the most wonderful statue in all the world. Only two silver pieces to look upon this most marvellous work of a master.” Thereupon the man from the hills paid two silver pieces and entered the shop to see the statue that he himself had sold for one spice of silver.

Upon the road of Zaad a traveller met a man who lived in a nearby village, and the traveller, pointing with his hand to a vast field, asked the man saying, “Was not this the battle-ground where King Ahlam overcame his enemies?” And the man answered and said, “This has never been a battle-ground. There once stood on this field the great city of Zaad, and it was burnt down to ashes. But now it is a good field, is it not?” And the traveller and the man parted. Not a half mile farther the traveller met another man, and pointing to the field again, he said, “So that is where the great city of Zaad once stood?’ And the man said, “There has never been a city in this place. But once there was a monastery here, and it was destroyed by the people of the South Country.” Shortly after, on that very road of Zaad, the traveller met a third man, and pointing once more to the vast field he said, “Is it not true that this is the place where once there stood a great monastery?” But the man answered, “There has never been a monastery in this neighbourhood, but our fathers and our forefathers have told us that once there fell a great meteor on this field.” Then the traveller walked on, wondering in his heart. And he met a very old man, and saluting his he said, “Sir, upon this road I have met three men who live in the neighbourhood and I have asked each of them about this field, and each one denied what the other had said, and each one told me a new tale that the other had not told.” Then th...