Kahlil Gibran Quotes
Most popular Kahlil Gibran Quotes
They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
A fact is a truth unsexed.
Work is love made visible.
Love is trembling happiness.
Knowledge is Life with wings.
Love is a trembling happiness.
Your friend is your needs answered.
Kindness is the shadow of God in man.
Love, like death, changes everything.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Passionate love is a quenchless thirst.
You have your ideology and I have mine.
Let there be spaces in our togetherness.
All that spirits desire, spirits attain.
Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
Let there be spaces in your togetherness.
Trading is thieving, unless it is barter.
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
A sense of humor is a sense of proportion.
All work is empty save when there is love.
All work is empty save where there is love.
There is no true wealth beyond a man's need.
The truth that needs proof is only half true.
No one believes the sincere except the honest.
Art is a step in the known toward the unknown.
Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.
Learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
A shy failure is nobler than an immodest success.
Faith perceives Truth sooner than Experience can.
Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.
Love knows not its depth till the hour of separation.
The freedom of the man who boasts of it is a slavery.
If it were not for guests all houses would be graves.
Man merely discovers; we never can and never will invent.
One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.
Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
Life without Love is like a tree without blossom and fruit.
Education sows not seeds in you, but makes your seeds grow.
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
Kindness is like a snow. It beautifies everything it covers.
They are short-sighted who look only on the path they tread.
Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Sayings remain meaningless until they are embodied in habits.
The nets of the law are devised to catch small criminals only.
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
He who requires urging to do a noble act will never accomplish it.
Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
Philosophy's work is finding the shortest path between two points.
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
The sultan of sultans is one who has gained the love of the pauper.
Civilization commenced when man first dug the earth and sowed seeds.
Courage, which is the sixth sense, finds the shortest way to triumph.
Where can I find a man governed by reason instead of habits and urges?
The virtue of some of the rich is that they teach us to despise wealth.
All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.
Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
To love life through labor is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
Most writers mend their tattered thoughts with patches from dictionaries.
To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.
Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.
The most solid stone in the structure is the lowest one in the foundation.
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
We are the warriors in the battle of Life, but some lead and others follow.
When I planted my pain in the field of patience it bore fruit of happiness.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.
You are the bows from which your children, as living arrows, are sent forth.
Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.
Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.
Inspiration is in seeing a part of the whole with the part of the whole in you.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.
We shall never understand each other until we reduce the language to seven words.
Love ... it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.
Zeal is a volcano, on the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.
We shall never understand one another until we reduce the language to seven words.
If existence had not been better than non-existence, there would have been no being.
History does not repeat itself except in the minds of those who do not know history.
If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.
Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Does the song of the seas end at the shore or in the hearts of those who listen to it?
A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.
The just is close to the people's heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.
Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.
The significance of a man is not what he attains, but rather in what he longs to attain.
What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?
Our souls traverse spaces in Life which are not measurable by Time, that invention of man.
The truly great man is one who would master no one, and one who would be mastered by none.
Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.
Let there be spaces in your togetherness And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
How can we hear the song of the field while our ears have the clamor of the city to swallow?
Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.
Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Poetry is a flash of lightning; it becomes mere composition when it is an arrangement of words.
When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.
Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and winds long to play with your hair.
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.
If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
When you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born.
They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.
Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life.
If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind.
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns, the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose.
Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half a sleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.
If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
Your self consists of two selves; one imagines that it knows himself and the other that the people know him.
Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.
You give but little when your give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
The poet is one who makes you feel, after reading his poems, that his best verses have not yet been composed.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
In every winter's heart there is a quivering spring, and behind the veil of each night there is a smiling dawn.
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.
Death most resembles a prophet who is without honour in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
To understand the heart and mind of a man, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.
The lust for comfort: that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.
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.
Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
Of life's two chief prizes, beauty and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a labourer's hand.
Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.
When someone invents a machine, he runs it; then the machine begins to run him, and he becomes the slave of his slave.
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.
Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.
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.
Is there any place where there is no traffic in empty talk? Is there on this earth one who does not worship himself talking?
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
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.
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.
Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness, And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
Money is like love, it kills slowly and painfully the man who withholds it, and it enlivens the other who turns it upon his fellow men.
Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.
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.
God has placed in each soul an apostle to lead us upon the illumined path. Yet many seek life from without, unaware that it is within them.
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.
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.
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.
The reality of music is in that vibration that remains in the ear after the singer finishes his song and the player no longer plucks the strings.
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?
Yes, there is a nirvana; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.
I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
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.
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.
The philosopher's soul dwells in his head, the poet's soul is in his heart; the singer's soul lingers about his throat, but the soul of the dancer abides in all her body.
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.
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.
Love, like a running brook, is disregarded, taken for granted; but when the brook freezes over, then people begin to remember how it was when it ran, and they want it to run again.
Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighbouring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?
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.
![A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm [and] arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland. - Kahlil Gibran quote.](/img/q/60/37560A-a-poet-is-a-bird-of-unearthly-excellence-who-escapes-kahlil-gibran.png)
A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm [and] arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.
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.
The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements, compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.
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.
In the mouth of Society are many diseased teeth, decayed to the bones of the jaws. But Society makes no effort to have them extracted and be rid of the affliction. It contents itself with gold fillings.
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.
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?
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 their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
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.
Money is like a stringed instrument; he who does not know how to use it properly will hear only discordant music. Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and enlivens the other who turns it on his fellow man.
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.
The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable. I would not have thee believe in what I say nor trust in what I do — for my words are naught but thy own thoughts in sound and my deeds thy own hopes in action.
Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant and kindness from the unkind.
The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.
Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
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.
