All Quotes by Khalil Gibran
“Love is trembling happiness.”
“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 and doubt have never been on speaking terms.”
“Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.”
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”
“You have your ideology and I have mine.”
“Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.”
“Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.”
“What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?”
“Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.”
“Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.”
“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?”
“Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.”
“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
“What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?”
“Love is trembling happiness.”
“Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.”
“If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song.”
“If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.”
“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.”
“Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'”
“The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.”
“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.”
“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.”
“They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.”
“If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.”
“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.”
“Love... it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.”
“Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.”
“And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”
“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”
“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.”
“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
“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.”
“When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.”
“Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.”
“Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.”
“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.”
“The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.”
“If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.”
“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.”
“Your friend is your needs answered.”
“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
“I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.”
“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?”
“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
“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.”
“If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”
“I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.”
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.”
“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”
“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.”
“Perhaps time’s definition of coal is the diamond.”
“Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.”
“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.”
“My house says to me, "Do not leave me, for here dwells your past."”
“If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.”
“Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”
“Let us disperse from our aloofness and serve the weak who made us strong, and cleanse the country in which we live. Let us teach this miserable nation to smile and rejoice with heaven's bounty and glory of life and freedom.”
“The creator gives no heed to the critic unless he becomes a barren inventor.”
“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”
“My enemy said to me, "Love your enemy." And I obeyed him and loved myself.”
“Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.”
“The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.”
“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to.”
“My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. 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.”
“I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath.”
“I go — as others already crucified have gone. And think not we are weary of crucifixion. For we must be crucified by larger and yet larger men, between greater earths and greater heavens.”
“O love, whose lordly hand Or a bowl you did not bless.”
“Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.”
“Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have found the soul walking upon my path." For the soul walks upon all paths. The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed. The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”
“Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you.”
“A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.”
“My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.”
“Love one another, but make not a bond of love:”
“When Life does not find a singer to sing her heart she produces a philosopher to speak her mind.”
“A truth is to be known always, to be uttered sometimes.”
“Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.”
“It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to understand it.”
“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
“There must be something strangely sacred about salt. It is in our tears and in the sea”
“"My face and your faces shall not be masked; our hand shall hold neither sword nor sceptre, and our subjects shall love us in peace and shall not be in fear of us." Thus spoke Jesus, and unto all the kingdoms of the earth I was blinded, and unto all the cities of walls and towers; and it was in my heart to follow the Master to His kingdom.”
“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.”
“I was dead. I was a woman who had divorced her soul. I was living apart from this self which you now see. I belonged to all men, and to none. They called me harlot, and a woman possessed of seven devils. I was cursed, and I was envied. But when His dawn-eyes looked into my eyes all the stars of my night faded away, and I became Miriam, only Miriam, a woman lost to the earth she had known, and finding herself in new places.”
“He knew the depth of beauty, He was for ever surprised by its peace and its majesty; and He stood before the earth as the first man had stood before the first day. We whose senses have been dulled, we gaze in full daylight and yet we do not see. We would cup our ears, but we do not hear; and stretch forth our hands, but we do not touch. And though all the incense of Arabia is burned, we go our way and do not smell.”
“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.”
“In truth we gaze but do not see, and hearken but do not hear; we eat and drink but do not taste. And there lies the difference between Jesus of Nazareth and ourselves. His senses were all continually made new, and the world to Him was always a new world.”
“The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.”
“Do you not remember me, Nicodemus, who believed in naught but the laws and decrees and was in continual subjection to observances? And behold me now, a man who walks with life and laughs with the sun from the first moment it smiles upon the mountain until it yields itself to bed behind the hills.”
“He was gentle, like a man mindful of his own strength. In my dreams I beheld the kings of the earth standing in awe in His presence.”
“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.”
“I have pondered long, and I know now that only the pure of heart forgive the thirst that leads to dead waters. And only the sure of foot can give a hand to him who stumbles.”
“Work is love made visible. And if you can't 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 the people who work with joy”
“Jesus loved me and I knew not why. But to those who do not love, it may be but a heartless jest.”
“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.”
“Love is a gracious host to his guests though to the unbidden his house is a mirage and a mockery. Yet it was not in His desire that His gestures be known.”
“I would tell you more of Him, but how shall I? And when memory is overladen it seeks the silent deep.”
“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.”
“In a dream I saw Jesus and My God Pan sitting together in the heart of the forest. They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long.”
“Once again I say that with death Jesus conquered death, and rose from the grave a spirit and a power. And He walked in our solitude and visited the gardens of our passion. We who love Him beheld Him with these our eyes which He made to see; and we touched Him with these our hands which He taught to reach forth.”
“You hate Jesus because someone from the North Country said He was the Son of God. But you hate one another because each of you deems himself too great to be the brother of the next man.”
“Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.”
“Men would bless you or curse you; With provision for his mate.”
“You laughed for the marrow in their bones that was not yet ready for laughter; Your voice mothered their words and their breath.”
“Master, Master of Light, A God too much man to call forth adoration.”
“But Master, Sky-heart, Knight of our fairer dream, You walk through all our arrows.”
“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.”
“Poet, Singer, Great Heart, And may God forgive us all.”
“Life without Liberty is like a body without spirit. Liberty without thought is like a disturbed spirit … Life, liberty, and thought — three persons in one substance, eternal, never-ending, and unceasing.”
“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
“Love and what generates it. Rebellion and what creates it. Liberty and what nourishes it. Three manifestations of God. And God is the conscience of the rational world.”
“How amazing time is, and how amazing we are. 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. Yesterday we complained of time and feared it, but today we love and embrace it. Indeed, we have begun to perceive its purposes and characteristics, and to comprehend its secrets and enigmas.”
“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”
“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”
“All that you see was and is for your sake. The numerous books, uncanny markings, and beautiful thoughts are the ghosts of souls who preceded you. The speech they weave is a link between you and your human siblings. The consequences that cause sorrow and rapture are the seeds that the past has sown in the field of the soul, and by which the future shall profit.”
“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”
“My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to love what the people abhor and to show good will toward the one they hate. It showed me that Love is a property not of the lover but of the beloved. Before my Soul taught me, Love was for me a delicate thread stretched between two adjacent pegs, but now it has been transformed into a halo; its first is its last, and its last is its first. It encompasses every being, slowly expanding to embrace all that ever will be.”
“My yearning is my cup, my burning thirst is my drink, and my solitude is my intoxication; I do not and shall not quench my thirst. But in this burning that is never extinguished is a joy that never wanes.”
“My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to touch what has never taken corporeal form or crystallized. It made me understand that touching something is half the task of comprehending it, and that what we grasp therein is part of what we desire from it.”
“My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me never to delight in praise or to be distressed by reproach. Before my Soul taught me, I doubted the value of my accomplishments until the passing days sent someone who would extol or disparage them. But now I know that trees blossom in the spring and give their fruits in the summer without any desire for accolades. And they scatter their leaves abroad in the fall and denude themselves in the winter without fear of reproof.”
“My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me that the lamp which I carry does not belong to me, and the song that I sing was not generated from within me. Even if I walk with light, I am not the light; and if I am a taut-stringed lute, I am not the lute player.”
“Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.”
“My thought is a tender leaf that sways in every direction and finds pleasure in its swaying. Your thought is an ancient dogma that cannot change you nor can you change it. My thought is new, and it tests me and I test it morn and eve. You have your thought and I have mine.”
“I am forever walking upon these shores,”
“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.”
“Your thought advocates Judaism, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In my thought there is only one universal religion, whose varied paths are but the fingers of the loving hand of the Supreme Being. In your thought there are the rich, the poor, and the beggared. My thought holds that there are no riches but life; that we are all beggars, and no benefactor exists save life herself.”
“To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.”
“When you part from your friend, you grieve not;”
“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”
“The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.”
“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.”
“I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.”
“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.”
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
“In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
“Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.”
“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”
“No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”
“Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”
“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.”
“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.”
“I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
“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.”
“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.”
“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”
“Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.”
“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.”
“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.”
“The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.”
“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.”
“And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
“Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.”
“To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.”
“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.”
“Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.”
“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”
“If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”
“Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.”
“”
“The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.”
“[I]st nicht die Zeit wie die Liebe, ungeteilt und ungezügelt?”
“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”
“Schönheit ist Ewigkeit, die sich in einem Spiegel anschaut. - Aber ihr seid die Ewigkeit, und ihr seid der Spiegel.”
“Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.”
“Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.”
“Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.”
“Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.”
“Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.”
“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.”
“All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.”
“I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.”
“Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.”
“Love... it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.”
“Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.”
“Your friend is your needs answered.”
“I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.”
“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
“Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.”
“Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.”
“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.”
“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”
“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.”
“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.”
“Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.”
“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.”
“Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.”
“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.”
“Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.”
“Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.”
“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 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.”
“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.”
“Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.”
“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.”
“And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
“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.”
“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”
“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;”
“Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”
“Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.”
“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
“Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”
“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.”
“Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.”
“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?”
“All that spirits desire, spirits attain.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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?”
“The lust for comfort kills the passions of the soul.”
“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
“No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”
“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.”
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.”
“I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.”
“Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.”
“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”
“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.”
“There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.”
“The just is close to the people's heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.”
“Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.”