Khalil Gibran Quotes

The voice of life in me cannot reach the ear of life in you; but let us talk that we may not feel lonely.

How distant I am from people when I am with them, and how close when they are far away.

Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed With seeds ofjasmine, lilies, and myrtle; and when they Grow above me and thrive on my body's element they will Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space.

That deepest thing, that recognition, that knowledge, that sense of kinship began the first time I saw you,and it is the same now - only a thousand times deeper and tenderer. I shall love you to eternity. I loved you long before we met in this flesh. I knew that when I first saw you. It was destiny. We are together like this and nothing can shake us apart.

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

All things in this creation exist within you and all things in you exist in creation; there is no border between you and the closest things, and there is no distance between you and the farthest things, and all things, from the lowest to the loftiest, from the smallest to the greatest, are within you as equal things.

Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.

In the depths of your hopes and desires, lies your silent knowledge of the beyond, and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

But now I have learned to listen to silence. To hear its choirs singing the song of ages, chanting the hymns of space, and disclosing the secrets of eternity.

If winter should say, 'Spring is in my heart,' who would believe winter?

A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.

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

He who seeks ecstasy in love should not complain of suffering.

Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names.

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst? Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

Tell your secret to the wind, but don't blame it for telling the trees.

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.

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

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?

Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

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.

And alone and without his nest shall the Eagle fly across the sun.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the same well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

Remember, one just man causes the Devil greater affliction than a million blind believers.

A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether. And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.

A look which reveals inward stress adds more beauty to the face, no matter how much tragedy and pain it bespeaks; but the face which, in silence, does not announce hidden mysteries is not beautiful, regardless of the symmetry of its features.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond.

Seek ye counsel of the aged for their eyes have looked on the faces of the years and their ears have hardened to the voices of Life. Even if their counsel is displeasing to you, pay heed to them.

The highest virtue here may be least in another world.

Every man loves two women;the one is the creation of his imagination and the other is not yet born

You are a flower crushed beneath the feet of the animal that is concealed in a human being. Take comfort, in that you are the flower crushed and not the foot that has crushed it.

You may chain my hands, you may shackle my feet; you may even throw me into a dark prison; but you shall not enslave my thinking, because it is free!

Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.

Love is a magic ray emitted from the burning core of the soul and illuminating the surrounding earth. It enables us to perceive life as a beautiful dream between one awakening and another.

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

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

When you look closely people are so strange & so complicated that they're actually beautiful.

It has been said that next to hunger and thirst, our most basic human need is for storytelling.

The teacher gives not of his wisdom, but rather of his faith and lovingness.

Poetry, my dear friends, is a sacred incarnation of a smile. Poetry is a sigh that dries the tears. Poetry is a spirit who dwells in the soul, whose nourishment is the heart, whose wine is affection. Poetry that comes not in this form is a false messiah.

The wolves prey upon the lambs in the darkness of the night, but the blood stains remain upon the stones in the valley until the dawn comes, and the sun reveals the crime to all.

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

The power to Love is God's greatest gift to man, For it never will be taken from the Blessed one who loves.

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

Passionate love is a quenchless thirst.