Quotes by Kahlil Gibran

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
– Kahlil Gibran
A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.
– Kahlil Gibran
Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
– Kahlil Gibran
All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.
– Kahlil Gibran
All that spirits desire, spirits attain.
– Kahlil Gibran
An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.
– Kahlil Gibran
And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
– Kahlil Gibran
And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
– Kahlil Gibran
Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
– Kahlil Gibran
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
– Kahlil Gibran
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.
– Kahlil Gibran
Cast aside those who liken godliness to whimsy and who try to combine their greed for wealth with their desire for a happy afterlife.
– Kahlil Gibran
Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
– Kahlil Gibran
Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.
– Kahlil Gibran
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
– Kahlil Gibran
Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.
– Kahlil Gibran
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
– Kahlil Gibran
For what is it to die, but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?
– Kahlil Gibran
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
– Kahlil Gibran
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
– Kahlil Gibran
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
– Kahlil Gibran
Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.
– Kahlil Gibran
Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.
– Kahlil Gibran
I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.
– Kahlil Gibran
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
– Kahlil 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.
– Kahlil Gibran
I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
– Kahlil Gibran
If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.
– Kahlil Gibran
If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.
– Kahlil Gibran
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.
– Kahlil Gibran
If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?
– Kahlil Gibran
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
– Kahlil Gibran
Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds.
– Kahlil Gibran
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.
– Kahlil Gibran
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
– Kahlil Gibran
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
– Kahlil Gibran
Love... It surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.
– Kahlil Gibran
Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.
– Kahlil Gibran
Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.
– Kahlil Gibran
Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.
– Kahlil Gibran
Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer's hand.
– Kahlil Gibran
Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
– Kahlil Gibran
Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
– Kahlil Gibran
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
– Kahlil Gibran
Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.
– Kahlil Gibran
Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
– Kahlil Gibran
Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
– Kahlil Gibran
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
– Kahlil Gibran
Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
– Kahlil Gibran
The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.
– Kahlil Gibran
The just is close to the people's heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.
– Kahlil Gibran
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
– Kahlil Gibran
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
– Kahlil Gibran
The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.
– Kahlil Gibran
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.
– Kahlil Gibran
The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.
– Kahlil Gibran
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
– Kahlil Gibran
They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.
– Kahlil Gibran
Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.
– Kahlil Gibran
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
– Kahlil Gibran
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
– Kahlil Gibran
We were a silent, hidden thought in the folds of oblivion, and we have become a voice that causes the heavens to tremble.
– Kahlil Gibran
What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
– Kahlil Gibran
What do the nationalists say about killers punishing murderers and thieves sentencing looters?
– Kahlil Gibran
What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?
– Kahlil 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.
– Kahlil Gibran
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. 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.
– Kahlil Gibran
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
– Kahlil Gibran
Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?
– Kahlil Gibran
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfful to seek other than itself.
– Kahlil Gibran
Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
– Kahlil Gibran
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
– Kahlil Gibran
Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.
– Kahlil Gibran
Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
– Kahlil Gibran
Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
– Kahlil Gibran
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
– 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
You have your ideology and I have mine.
– Kahlil Gibran
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.
– Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
– Kahlil 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.
– Kahlil Gibran
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
– Kahlil Gibran
Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.
– Kahlil Gibran
For this I bless you most: You give much and know not that you give at all.
– Kahlil Gibran
If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.
– Kahlil Gibran
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
– Kahlil Gibran
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.
– Kahlil Gibran
Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'
– Kahlil Gibran
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 the people's wrath.
– Kahlil Gibran
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
– Kahlil Gibran