Khalil Gibran Quotes

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

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.

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

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.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?

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.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.

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.

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

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.

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.

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

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.

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.

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.

Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

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?

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.

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 is trembling happiness.

Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

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?

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.

Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.

The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.

Love… it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.