Khalil Gibran Quotations | Page 2

Say not, 'I have found the truth,' but rather, 'I have found a truth.'

You have your ideology and I have mine.

Life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, and all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, and all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love.

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.

Let the earth take that which is hers; for I, man, have no end

I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds.

For what is it to die, But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?

Cast aside those who liken godliness to whimsy and who try to combine their greed for wealth with their desire for a happy afterlife.

Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange.

What do the nationalists say about killers punishing murderers and thieves sentencing looters?

... joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

You are blind and I am deaf and dumb, so let us touch hands and understand

Yesterday is but today's memory, tomorrow is today's dream.

When you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born. And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life, And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.

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 potter's oven?

The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says, but rather to what he does not say.

The Real me is mute, it is the acquired that is talkative.

We were a silent, hidden thought in the folds of oblivion, and we have become a voice that causes the heavens to tremble.

Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your body and less of your raiment

And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.

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 timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness; and knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.

Yes, there is 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

Beauty in not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.

Oh, heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.

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

When life life does not find a singer to sing her heart, she produces a philosopher to speak her mind

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.

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, and in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life...

A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness. Freedom of loneliness and safety from being understood. For those who understand us enslave something in us.

They say that if one understands himself, he understands all people. But I say to you, when one loves people, he learns something about himself.

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

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. 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 y

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafairing soul, if either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

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

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

Once I, deemed myself a poet. But when I stood before him in Bethany I knew what is was to hold an instrument with but a single string before one who commands all instruments

In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans

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

An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper

You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore . . . but let there be spaces in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

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.

The life of a flower is longing and fulfilment. A tear and a smile.

Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?

Love passes by us, robed in meekness; but we flee from her in fear, or hide in the darkness; or else pursue her, to do evil in her name.

Where are you now, my beloved? Do you hear my weeping From beyond the ocean? Do you understand my need? Do you know the greatness of my patience?

Inspiration is in seeing a part of the whole with the part of the whole in you.

I had a second birth when my soul and my body loved one another and were married.

And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?

You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable. You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons. Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.

Poetry is not the opinion stated. It is a song that appears instead of a bloody wound or a smiling mouth.

They tell me: If you see a slave sleeping, do not wake him lest he be dreaming of freedom. I tell them: If you see a slave sleeping, wake him and explain to him freedom.

Youth is a beautiful dream, on whose brightness books shed a blinding dust. Will ever the day come when the wise link the joy of knowledge to youth's dream? Will ever the day come when Nature becomes the teacher of man, humanity his book and life his school? Youth's joyous purpose cannot be fulfilled until that day comes. Too slow is our march toward spiritual elevation, because we make so little use of youth's ardor.

The soul is an embryo in the body of Man, and the day of death is the Day of awakening, for it is the Great era of labour and the rich Hour of creation.

I am a poet who composes what life proses, and who proses what life composes.

He who does not see the angels and devils in the beauty and malice of life will be far removed from knowledge, and his spirit will be empty of affection.

Braving obstacles and hardships is nobler than retreat to tranquility. The butterfly that hovers around the lamp until it dies is more admirable than the mole that lives in a dark tunnel.

The subtlest beauties in our life are unseen and unheard.

Spiritual awakening is the most essential thing in man's life, and it is the sole purpose of being. Is not civilization, in all its tragic forms, a supreme motive for spiritual awakening?

True love cannot be found where it truly does not exist, Nor can it be hidden where it truly does. Anonymous Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.

I am bored with gabbers and their gab; my soul abhors them. . . . Is there any place where there is no traffic in empty talk? Is there on this earth one who does not worship himself talking?

If it were not for guests all houses would be graves.

You are good when you are one with yourself. Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil. For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house. And a ship without rudder may wander aimlessly among perilous isles yet sink not to the bottom.

When you are sorrowful, look again.

He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.

The saint and the sinner are twin brothers...one was born but the moment before the other.

Passionate love is a quenchless thirst....

The sea that calls all things unto her cals me, and I must embark.

I once heard a learned man say, "Every evil has its remedy, except folly. To reprimand an obstinate fool or to preach to a dolt is like writing upon the water. Christ healed the blind, the halt, the palsied, and the leprous. But the fool He could not cure."

When God created Man, he gave him Music as a language different from all other languages. And early man sang his glory in the wilderness; and drew the hearts of kings and moved them from their thrones.

The fool sees naught but folly; and the madman only madness. Yesterday I asked a foolish man to count the fools among us. He laughed and said, "This is too hard a thing to do, and it will take too long. Were it not better to count only the wise?"

Then it is also in my heart to be worthy of your hate.

I have never agreed with my other self wholly. The truth of the matter seems to lie between us.

The wolves prey upon the lambs in the darkness of the night, but the blood stains remain upon the stones in the valley until the dawn comes, and the sun reveals the crime to all.

I would not exchange the sorrows of my heart for the joys of the multitude. And I would not have the tears that sadness makes to flow from my every part turn into laughter. I would that my life remain a tear and a smile.

Wit is often a mask. If you tear it you will find either genius irritated or cleverness juggling.

He who requires urging to do a noble act will never accomplish it.

Philosophy began when man ate the produce of the earth and suffered indigestion.

You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

That deed which in our guilt we today call weakness, will appear tomorrow as an essential link in the complete chain of Man.

The longing for paradise is paradise itself.

Your body is the harp of the soul.

He who passes not his days in the realm of dreams is the slave of the days.

Virtue tested: "Have I not survived hunger and thirst, suffering, and mockery for the sake of the truth which heaven has awakened in my heart?

When you have solved all the mysteries of life you long for death, for it is but another mystery of life.

I would tell you more of Him, but how shall I? When love becomes vast love becomes wordless. And when memory is overladen it seeks the silent deep.

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.

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.

O love, whose lordly hand Has bridled my desires, And raised my hunger and my thirst To dignity and pride, Let not the strong in me and the constant Eat the bread or drink the wine That tempt my weaker self. Let me rather starve, And let my heart parch with thirst, And let me die and perish, Ere I stretch my hand To a cup you did not fill, Or a bowl you did not bless.

What the soul knows is often unknown to the man who has a soul. We are infinitely more than we think.

Which of you would be silent - when all else sings together in unison?

The only time a juggler / Appeals to me / Is when I see him / Miss the ball.

I want every image to be the beginning of an unseen image.

A minute moving among the patterns of beauty and the dreams of love is greater and more precious than an age filled with splendor granted by the weak to the strong.

If any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife, let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.

Behold, I have reached the peak of the mountain and my spirit has taken flight in the heavens of freedom and liberation. I have gone far, far away, O children of my mother; the hills beyond the mists are now hidden from my view, the last traces of the valleys have been flooded by the ocean of serenity, and the paths and trails have been erased by the hand of oblivion. The roar of ocean waves has faded. I no longer hear anything but the anthem of eternity, which harmonizes with the spirit.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother. Doubt is a foundling unhappy and astray, and though his own mother who gave him birth should find him and enfold him, he would withdraw in caution and in fear.