Kahlil Gibran Quotes

For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?

He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy

It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to understand it.

Stand together yet not too near together:For the pillars of the temples stand apart,And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each others shadow.

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.

Yes there is a Nirvanah: 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.

Je tiefer sich das Leid in euer Sein eingräbt, desto mehr Freude könnt ihr fassen.

He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.

That deepest thing, that recognition, that knowledge, that sense of kinship began the first time I saw you,and it is the same now - only a thousand times deeper and tenderer. I shall love you to eternity. I loved you long before we met in this flesh. I knew that when I first saw you. It was destiny. We are together like this and nothing can shake us apart.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward,

You give but little when you give of your possessions.It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.

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

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

In much of your talking thinking is half murdered.

Perhaps time’s definition of coal is the diamond.

But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potters oven?And is not the lute that soothes your spirits the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

One hour devoted to mourning and lamenting theStolen equality of the weak is nobler than aCentury filled with greed and usurpation.

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

The significance of a man is not in what he attains but rather in what he longs to attain.

When you see a man led to prison say in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping from a narrower prison." And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful.

Could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.

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

Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.

For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today made by past generations was before its appearance a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman.

You may judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself.

Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.

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.

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

The tiny flame that lights up the human heart is like a blazing torch that comes down from heaven to light up the paths of mankind. For in one soul are contained the hopes and feelings of all Mankind.

He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly.

Smile, my beloved, like the gold smiles from my father's coffers.

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.For what is evil but good tortured by it’s own hunger and thirst?Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.

Let there be spaces in your togetherness.And let the wind of the heavens dance between you.

Believing is a fine thing, but putting those beliefs into execution is a test of strength.

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.

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

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.

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

Long ago you were a dream in your mother's sleep, and then she awoke to give you birth.

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. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself... 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.

Beauty is that which attracts your soul, and that which loves to give and not to receive.