Khalil Gibran Quotations | Page 5

A truly religious man does not embrace a religion; and he who embraces one has no religion.

Marriage is like a temple resting on two pillars. If they come too close to each other the temple will collapse.

Do not keep crying when your love has been gone. You only need Smile because he had been given you the opportunity to meet someone who is better.

God has made many doors opening into truth which He opens to all who knock upon them with hands of faith.

When you kill a beast, say to him in your heart: ~By the same power that slays you, I too am slain, and I too shall be consumed. ~For the law that delivers you into my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand. ~Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven.

The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.

Miserable is the man who loves a woman and takes her for his wife, pouring at her feet the sweat of his skin and the blood of his body and the life of his heart, and placing her in the hands of the fruit of his toil and the revenue of his diligence; for when he slowly wakes up, he finds that the heart that he endeavored to buy is given away freely and in sincerity to another man for the enjoyment of its hidden secrets and deepest love.

Learn the words of wisdom uttered by the wise and apply them in your own life. Live them - but do not a make a show of reciting them, for he who repeats what he does not understand is no better than an ass loaded with books.

And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love; and when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

The thirst of soul is sweeter than the wine of material things, and the fear of spirit is dearer than the security of the body.

And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives. Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings; For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free hearted earth for mother, and God for father.

...unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

If your knowledge teaches you not the value of things, and frees you not from the bondage to matter, you shall never come near the throne of Truth.

Seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line. For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

There is within me a friend who consoles me every time that troubles overwhelm me and misfortunes afflict me. The man who does not feel friendship towards himself is a public enemy, and he who finds no confidant within himself will die of despair. For life streams out of man's inner self and in no way from what surrounds him.

My Lebanon is a flock of birds fluttering in the early morning as shepherds lead their sheep into the meadow & rising in the evening as farmers return from their fields and vineyards.You have your Lebanon and its people. I have my Lebanon and its people.

For a love to grow through the test of everyday living, one must respect that zone of privacy where one retires to relate to the inside instead of the outside.

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.

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.

Persecution cannot harm him who stands by Truth. Did not Socrates fall proudly a victim in body? Was not Paul stoned for the sake of the Truth? It is our inner selves that hurt us when we disobey it, and it kills us when we betray it.

Qualities of Good Citizens... is to admire what others have created in love and faith

Remember that Divinity is the true self of Man. It cannot be sold for gold; neither can it be heaped up as are the riches of the world today. The rich man has cast off his Divinity, and has clung to his gold. And the young today have forsaken their Divinity and pursue self-indulgence and pleasure.

To be closer to god, be closer to people.

He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy. [for without sorrow how would you know what joy is? Contrast provides peceptive clarity]

There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.

The feelings we live through in love and in loneliness are simply, for us, what high tide and low tide are to the sea.

Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf. For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things. And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.

God has placed in each soul an apostle to lead us upon the illumined path. Yet many seek life from without, unaware that is within them.

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

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.

My friend, be not like him who sits by his fireside and watches the fire go out, then blows vainly upon the dead ashes. Do not give up hope or yield to despair because of that which is past, for to bewail the irretrievable is the worst of human frailties.

When you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit. Work is love made visible

Where can I find a man governed by reason instead of habits and urges?

Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for gladness, for even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable.

My brothers, seek counsel of one another, for therein lies the way out of error and futile repentance. The wisdom of the many is your shield against tyranny. For when we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.

Your life is an island separated from all other islands and continents. Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

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

Your freedom when it loses its fetters becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

In the depth of my soul there is a wordless song.

Your house is your larger body.

Darkness is dawn not yet born.

Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.

Be patient, for it is from doubt that knowledge is born.

Say not, I have found the path of the soul Say rather, I have met the soul walking upon my path.

Give me an ear and I will give you a Voice...

The sun teaches to all things that grow their longing for the light. But it is night that raises them to the stars.

Do not fear the thorns in your path, for they draw only corrupt blood.

Mother: the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind.

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

An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.

Love is the only flower that grows and blossoms without the aid of the seasons

Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes.

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.

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge. The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness. If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

The teacher gives not of his wisdom, but rather of his faith and lovingness.

The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

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

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

Is not the beautiful moon, that inspires poets, the same moon which angers the silence of the sea with a terrible roar?

Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow.

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.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless? And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the center of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?

Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names. It was love lashed by its own self that spoke. It was pride half slain that fluttered in the dust. It was my hunger for your love that raged from the housetop, while my own love, kneeling in silence, prayed your forgiveness.

Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.

Desire is half of life, indifference is half of death.

life unfolds itself in mysteries ways.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw, But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels forever in flight.

And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

Education sows not seeds in you, but makes your seeds grow.

No lower can a man descend than to interpret his dreams into gold and silver.

It is slavery to live in the mind unless it has become part of the body

You are far, far greater than you know - and all is well.

You may chain my hands, you may shackle my feet; you may even throw me into a dark prison; but you shall not enslave my thinking, because it is free!

Knowledge and understanding are life's faithful companions who will never prove untrue to you. For knowledge is your crown, and understanding your staff; and when they are with you, you can possess no greater treasures.

Should we all confess our sins to one another we would all laugh at one another for our lack of originality

Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.

When God threw me, a pebble, into this wondrous lake, I disturbed its surface with countless circles. But when I reached the depths, I became very still.

I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.

If it's a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.

He who does not seek advice is a fool. His folly blinds him to Truth and makes him evil, stubborn, and a danger to his fellow man.

Extreme torture is mute, and so we sat silent, petrified, like columns of marble buried under the sand of an earthquake. Neither wished to listen to the other because our heart-threads had become weak and even breathing would have broken them.

Give and Take... For to the bee a flower is a fountain if life And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving is a need and an ecstasy.

If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

Your saying 'I do not understand you' is praise beyond my worth, and an insult you do not deserve.

Love is the gentle smile upon the lips of beauty.

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

In the autumn I gathered all my sorrows and buried them in my garden. And when April returned and spring came to wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful flowers unlike all other flowers. And my neighbors came to behold them, and they all said to me, "When autumn comes again, at seeding time, will you not give us of the seeds of these flowers that we may have them in our gardens?"

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth./The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Every man loves two women;the one is the creation of his imagination and the other is not yet born

Between the shores of the oceans and the summit of the highest mountain is a secret route that you must absolutely take before being one with the sons of the Earth.

Now I realize that the trees blossom in Spring and bear fruit in Summer without seeking praise; and they drop their leaves in Autumn and become naked in Winter without fearing blame.

I am forever walking upon these shores, Betwixt the sand and the foam, The high tide will erase my food prnts, And the wind will blow away the foam, But the sea and the shore will remain forver

It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, but rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.