Khalil Gibran Quotations | Page 4

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the 'nay' in your own mind, nor do you withhold the 'ay. And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart; For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed. When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.

If you sing of beauty though alone in the heart of the desert you will have an audience.

A root is a flower that disdains fame.

The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.

The giving and receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

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

Love is not without its flaws. The stronger the love, the more it tests you. Compassion and empathy will make true love persist.

Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.

A thief is a man in need. A liar is a man in fear.

There are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue; They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.

Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end.

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

He who understands you is greater kin to you than your own brother. For even your own kindred neither understand you nor know your true worth.

And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that your should seek with him hours to kill? Seek with him always hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness. And in the sweetness of friendship, let there be laughter, and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

He alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

You are good when you strive to give of yourself. Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself. For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, 'Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance.' For to the fruit giving is a need as receiving is a need to the root.

God created music as a common language for all men. It inspires the poets, the composers and the architects. It lures us to search our souls for the meaning of the mysteries described in ancient books.

Rest in reason. Move in Passion.

Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody.

Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows - then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason." And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, - then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion.

Nature reaches out to us with welcoming arms, and bids us enjoy her beauty; but we dread her silence and rush into the crowded cities, there to huddle like sheep fleeing from a ferocious wolf.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding... And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy

Love is a magic ray emitted from the burning core of the soul and illuminating the surrounding earth. It enables us to perceive life as a beautiful dream between one awakening and another.

I love you, my brother, whoever you are - whether you worship in a church, kneel in your temple, or pray in your mosque. You and I are children of one faith, for the diverse paths of religion are fingers of the loving hand of the one supreme being, a hand extended to all, offering completeness of spirit to all, eager to receive all.

And before my Soul took me to task I was hard of hearing; I heard only tumult and uproar. But now I am all ears listening to the silence and its choirs singing the hymns of time, intoning the praises of the firmament, revealing the secrets of the invisible.

My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.

Only yesterday I was no different than them, yet I was saved. I am explaining to you the way of life of a people who say every sort of wicked thing about me because I sacrificed their friendship to gain my own soul. I left the dark paths of their duplicity and turned my eyes toward the light where there is salvation, truth, and justice. They have exiled me now from their society, yet I am content. Mankind only exiles the one whose large spirit rebels against injustice and tyranny. He who does not prefer exile to servility is not free in the true and necessary sense of freedom.

Every man is two men; one is awake in the darkness, the other asleep in the light.

If your knowledge teaches you not to rise above human weakness and misery and lead your fellow man on the right path, you are indeed a man of little worth and will remain such till Judgment Day.

Marriage is like a golden ring in a chain, whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity.

Life without Freedom is like a body without a soul, and Freedom without Thought is like a confused spirit. . . . Life, Freedom and Thought are three-in-one, and are everlasting and shall never pass away.

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.

Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

In the mouth of Society are many diseased teeth, decayed to the bones of the jaws. But Society makes no effort to have them extracted and be rid of the affliction. It contents itself with gold fillings.

And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

The earth is like a beautiful bride who needs no manmade jewels to heighten her loveliness...

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of the heart's knowledge. You would know in words that which you have always known in thought. You would touch with your fingers the naked body of the dreams.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.

You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields. That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind....

Poverty hides itself in thought before it surrenders to purses.

Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

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.

In the depth of my soul there is A wordless song - a song that lives In the seed of my heart. It refuses to melt with ink on Parchment; it engulfs my affection In a transparent cloak and flows, But not upon my lips.

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.

You cannot judge any man beyond your knowledge of him, and how small is your knowledge.

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.

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.

Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.

Spring is beautiful everywhere, but it is more than beautiful in Lebanon. Spring is the spirit of an unknown God speeding through the world, which, as it reaches Lebanon, pauses, because now it is as at home with the souls of the Prophets and Kings hovering over the land, chanting with the brooks of Judea, the eternal Psalms of Solomon, renewing with the Cedars of Lebanon memories of an ancient glory.

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.” “Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving

Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.

A woman whom Providence has provided with beauty of spirit and body is a truth, at the same time both open and secret, which we can understand only by love, and touch only by virtue.

Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and enlivens the other who turns it on his fellow man.

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy, you may find in them a harness and a chain. Would that you could meet the sun and the wind with more of your body and less of your raiment.

In friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures.

You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.

Happiness is a vine that takes root and grows within the heart, never outside it.

The song of the voice is sweet, but the song of the heart is the pure voice of heaven.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself, but if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires.

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting

Only love and death will change all things.

In every winter's heart there is a quivering spring, and behind the veil of each night there is a shining dawn.

Our worst fault is our preoccupation with the faults of others.

If you are poor, shun association with him who measures men with the yardstick of riches.

He who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.

He who seeks ecstasy in love should not complain of suffering.

Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches; yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth.

Braving obstacles and hardships is braver than retreat to tranquility.

And only the sure of foot can give a hand to him who stumbles.

Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

Follow your heart. Your heart is the right guide in everything big. Mine is so limited. What you want to do is determined by that divine element that is in each of us.

The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.

It has been said that next to hunger and thirst, our most basic human need is for storytelling.

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

The mother is everything - she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly

The poet is a bird of strange moods. He descends from his lofty domain to tarry among us, singing; if we do not honor him he will unfold his wings and fly back to his dwelling place.

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding; and to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.

Birth and Death are the two noblest expressions of bravery.

Perhaps time’s definition of coal is the diamond.

Love is trembling happiness.

Whoever would be a teacher of men let him begin by teaching himself before teaching others; and let him teach by example before teaching by word. For he who teaches himself and rectifies his own ways is more deserving of respect and reverence than he who would teach others and rectify their ways.

Remembrance is a form of meeting.

God made Truth with many doors to welcome every believer who knocks on them.

If we were to all sit in a circle and confess our sins, we would laugh at each other for lack of originality.

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.

A hermit is one who renounces the world of fragments that he may enjoy the world wholly and without interruption.

We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.

How can I lose faith in the justice of life, when the dreams of those who sleep upon feathers are not more beautiful than the dreams of those who sleep upon the earth?

And if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility: For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen, And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.

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.

Lovers embrace that which is between them rather than each other.

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.

Everyone has experienced that truth: that love, like a running brook, is disregarded, taken for granted; but when the brook freezes over, then people begin to remember how it was when it ran, and they want it to run again.