91 Most Famous Kahlil Gibran Quotes (Author of The Prophet)
Kahlil Gibran (born 6 January 1883, Bsharri, Lebanon – died 10 April 1931, Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Center, New York, United States) was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist, also considered a philosopher although he himself rejected the title. He is best-known for his poetry prose book 'The Prophet' (1923), an early example of inspirational fiction including a series of philosophical essays written in poetic english prose.
Gibran was president of the New York-based Arab American literary group called the 'Pen League', whose members promoted writing in Arabic and English. His Romantic style was at the heart of a renaissance in modern Arabic literature. In Lebanon, Kahlil Gibran is still celebrated as a literary hero.
30 Wise Kahlil Gibran Quotes
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.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.Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were.Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.God made Truth with many doors to welcome every believer who knocks on them.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.Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.It is well to give when asked but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.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.We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.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.Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’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.We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.
19 Kahlil Gibran quotes above Love
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.How beautiful to find a heart that loves you, without asking you for anything, but to be okay.Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.And God said, Love your enemy, & I obeyed Him & loved myself.Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.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.No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.Travel and tell no one, live a true love story and tell no one, live happily and tell no one, people ruin beautiful things.It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone, but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.Every man loves two women; the one is the creation of his imagination and the other is not yet born.You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.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.Hearts united in pain and sorrow will not be separated by joy and happiness. Bonds that are woven in sadness are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure. Love that is washed by tears will remain eternally pure and faithful.If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.When you love you should not think you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.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.Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
43 Kahlil Gibran Quotes about Life That Make You Think
Work is love made visible.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.For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.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.How distant I am from people when I am with them, and how close when they are far away.Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.To belittle, you have to be little.Follow your heart. Your heart is the right guide in everything big.You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.Our worst fault is our preoccupation with the faults of others.He that tries to seize an opportunity after it has passed him by is like one who sees it approach but will not go to meet it.Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you.The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?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.If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.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.Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.The lights of stars that were extinguished ages ago still reaches us. So it is with great men who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities.Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.To be able to look back upon one’s life in satisfaction, is to live twice.A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.A man’s true wealth is the good he does in the world.Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.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.When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
