Khalil Gibran Quotes

For Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

If I accept the sunshine and warmth, then I must also accept the thunder and lightning.

The biggest thing in today's sorrow is the memory of yesterday's joy.

A shy failure is nobler than an immodest success.

Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness, for even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable.

The earth is like a beautiful bride who needs no manmade jewels to heighten her loveliness.

If your knowledge teaches you not to rise above human weakness and misery and lead your fellow man on the right path, you are indeed a man of little worth and will remain such till Judgment Day.

Now let us play hide and seek. Should you hide in my heart it would not be difficult to find you. But should you hide behind your own shell, then it would be useless for anyone to seek you.

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.

And your fragrance shall be my breath, And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.

God has made many doors opening into truth which He opens to all who knock upon them with hands of faith.

life unfolds itself in mysteries ways.

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

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

Each day look into your conscience and amend your faults; if you fail in this duty you will be untrue to the Knowledge and Reason that are within you. Keep a watchful eye over yourself as if you were your own enemy; for you cannot learn to govern yourself, unless you first learn to govern your own passions and obey the dictates of your conscience.

Work is love made visable.

Your body is the harp of the soul.

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

Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

In battling evil, excess is good; for he who is moderate in announcing the truth is presenting half-truth. He conceals the other half out of fear of people's wrath.

Every man is two men; one is awake in the darkness, the other asleep in the light.

Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.

Which of you would be silent - when all else sings together in unison?

You who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.

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.

Your thought describes laws, courts, judges, punishments. Mine explains that when man makes a law, he either violates it or obeys it. If there is a basic law, we are all one before it. He who disdains the mean is himself mean. He who vaunts his scorn of the sinful vaunts his disdain of all humanity.

Know, therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return... Forget not that I shall come back to you... A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.

The most solid stone in the structure is the lowest one in the foundation.

The giving and receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

Wit is often a mask. If you tear it you will find either genius irritated or cleverness juggling.

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

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 generations, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman.

The poet is a bird of strange moods. He descends from his lofty domain to tarry among us, singing; if we do not honor him he will unfold his wings and fly back to his dwelling place.

But 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.

How can I lose faith in the justice of life, when the dreams of those who sleep upon feathers are not more beautiful than the dreams of those who sleep upon the earth?

The truly good is he who is one with all those who are deemed bad.

Oh, Lord God, have mercy on me and mend my broken wings.

Love is all I can possess and no one can deprive me of it. Kahlil Gibran (Visions of the Prophet)

Love is quivering happiness.

When you feel Jealousy is a sign that Love should have each other

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.

He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy. [for without sorrow how would you know what joy is? Contrast provides peceptive clarity]

Your reason and your passion are your rudder and 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.

One may not reach the dawn save by path of night.

Virtue tested: "Have I not survived hunger and thirst, suffering, and mockery for the sake of the truth which heaven has awakened in my heart?

In the autumn I gathered all my sorrows and buried them in my garden. And when April returned and spring came to wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful flowers unlike all other flowers. And my neighbors came to behold them, and they all said to me, "When autumn comes again, at seeding time, will you not give us of the seeds of these flowers that we may have them in our gardens?"

Be patient, for it is from doubt that knowledge is born.