Khalil Gibran Quotations | Page 6

If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more,we shall speak again together and you shall sing to me a deeper song. And if our hands should meet in another dream we shall build another tower in the sky.

But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs a while in the wind and then is heard no more.

It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.

For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.

All things in this vast universe exist in you, with you, and for you.

Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed With seeds ofjasmine, lilies, and myrtle; and when they Grow above me and thrive on my body's element they will Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space.

He who repeats what he does not understand is no better than an ass that is loaded with books.

A man can be free without being great, but no man can be great without being free.

Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

Conscience is a just but weak judge. Weakness leaves it powerless to execute its judgment.

A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.

Inspiration will always sing; inspiration will never explain.

We stood up and bade each other farewell, but love and despair stood between us like two ghosts, one stretching his wings with his fingers over our throats, one weeping and the other laughing hideously. As I took Selma's hand and put it to my lips, she came close to me and placed a kiss on my forehead, then dropped on the wooden bench. She shut her eyes and whispered softly, "Oh, Lord God, have mercy on me and mend my broken wings!

Pity the nation whose statesman is a fox, whose philosopher is a juggler, and whose art is the art of patching and mimicking. Pity the nation that welcomes its new ruler with trumpetings, and farewells him with hootings, only to welcome another ruler with trumpetings again. Pity the nation whose sages are dumb with years and whose strong men are yet in the cradle. Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation.

Many are the places of worship, but few indeed are those who worship in Spirit and in truth.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love...

A truth is to be known always, to be uttered sometimes.

Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, 'Who are you?'

God has bestowed upon you intelligence and knowledge. Do not extinguish the lamp of Divine Grace and do not let the candle of wisdom die out in the darkness of lust and error. For a wise man approaches with his torch to light up the path of mankind.

If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts.

Your thought describes laws, courts, judges, punishments. Mine explains that when man makes a law, he either violates it or obeys it. If there is a basic law, we are all one before it. He who disdains the mean is himself mean. He who vaunts his scorn of the sinful vaunts his disdain of all humanity.

For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.

Men would bless you or curse you; The curse, a protest against failure, The blessing, a hymn of the hunter Who comes back from the hills With provision for his mate.

A word I want to see written on my grave: I am alive like you, and I am standing beside you. Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you.

Follow only beauty and obey only love.

Love is a gracious host to his guests though to the unbidden his house is a mirage and a mockery.

You, the strong, have I loved, though the marks of your iron hoofs are yet upon my flesh.

In a dream I saw Jesus and My God Pan sitting together in the heart of the forest. They laughed at each other's speech, with the brook that ran near them, and the laughter of Jesus was the merrier. And they conversed long.

God has given you a spirit with wings on which to soar into the spacious firmament of Love and Freedom. Is it not pitiful than that you cut your wings with your own hands and suffer your soul to crawl like an insect upon the earth?

Now let us play hide and seek. Should you hide in my heart it would not be difficult to find you. But should you hide behind your own shell, then it would be useless for anyone to seek you.

Death changes nothing but the mask that covers our faces.

A shy failure is nobler than an immodest success.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Reason is not like the goods sold in the market places--the more plentiful they are, the less they are worth. Reason's worth waxes with her abundance. But were she sold in the market, it is only the wise man who would understand her true value.

Yet has not Man wept at the sounds? And are not his tears eloquent understanding?

Love is the veil between lover and lover.

Said a skunk to a tube-rose, "See how swiftly I run, while you cannot walk nor even creep." Said the tube-rose to the skunk, "Oh, most noble swift runner, please run swiftly!"

Believing is a fine thing, but placing those beliefs into execution is a test of strength. Many are those who talk like the roar of the sea, gut their lives are shallow and stagnant, like the rotting marshes. Many are those who lift their heads above the mountain tops, but their spirits remain dormant in the obscurity of the caverns.

I have passed the mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the firmament of Complete and unbounded freedom; I am in comfort, I am in peace.

Sit by me, my beloved, and listen to my heart; smile, for your happiness is a symbol of our future.

For this I bless you most. You give much and know not that you give at all.

Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.

Man is like the foam of the sea, that floats upon the surface of the water. When the wind blows, it vanishes, as if it had never been. Thus are our lives blown away by Death.

If winter should say, 'Spring is in my heart,' who would believe winter?

He who listens to truth is not less than he who utters truth.

Reason without learning is like the untilled soil, or like the human body that lacks nourishment.

My friends: Music is the language of spirits. Its melody is like the frolicsome breeze that makes the strings quiver with love. When the gentle fingers of Music knock at the door of our feelings, they awaken memories that have long lain hidden in the depths of the Past. The sad strains of Music bring us mournful recollections; and her quiet strains bring us joyful memories. The sound of strings makes us weep at the departure of a dear one, or makes us smile at the peace God has bestowed upon us.

Should you really open your eyes and see, you would behold your image in all images. And should you open your ears and listen, you would hear your own voice in all voices.

And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone. Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.

When you look closely people are so strange & so complicated that they're actually beautiful.

For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks." Thus I became a madman.

My proof convinces the ignorant, and the wise man's proof convinces me. But he whose reasoning falls between wisdom and ignorance, I neither can convince him, nor can he convince me.

In truth you owe naught to any man. You owe to all men.

Our pain carves out a larger space for love to fill.

He is short-sighted who looks only on the path he treads and the wall on which he leans.

You are good when you are fully awake in your speech, Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose. And even stumbling speech may strengthen a weak tongue.

Philosophy's work is finding the shortest path between two points.

He who denies his heritage, has no heritage

Have you not heard of the man who was digging in the earth for roots and found a treasure?

And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?

Rob a neighbour with a smile.

Harlots shall be made pure by their own tears. But you publicans shall be held down by the chains of your own judgement.

Those who give you a serpent when you ask for a fish, may have nothing but serpents to give.

Yesterday is ever jealous of...tomorrow.

Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?

Take then this Book, look into it, and show me when Jesus was not forgiving. Read this diving tragedy and tell me where He speaks without mercy and compassion. You visit not the sick and the imprisoned; nor do you feed the hungry or give refuge to the stranger or comfort to the mourner.

When we oppose the hidden conscience, it does us hurt. When we betray it, it judges us.

The shepherd will deny the diseased lamb in fear of the flock.

What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?

Many are the fools who say that Jesus stood in His own path and opposed Himself; that He knew not His own mind, and in the absence of that knowledge confounded Himself.

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 will find that it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

Disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.

Trickery succeeds sometimes, but it always commits suicide.

The envier praises me unknowingly.

Sorrow is too great to exist in small hearts.

Why dispute what we shall be, when we know not even what we are.

They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.

Thinking is always the stumbling stone to poetry.

Art is a step in the known toward the unknown

My house says to me, "do not leave me, for here dwells your past." And the road says to me, "Come and follow me, for I am your future." And I say to both my house and the road, "I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death change all things."

The power to Love is God's greatest gift to man, For it never will be taken from the Blessed one who loves.

Friendship with the ignorant is as foolish as arguing with a drunkard.

Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net. For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward. And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism. And 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. Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes he smiles upon the earth.

But now I have learned to listen to silence. To hear its choirs singing the song of ages, chanting the hymns of space, and disclosing the secrets of eternity.

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

Life is weaker than Death and Death is weaker than Truth.

We are the sons of Sorrow; we are the poets and the prophets and the musicians.

I said to Life, I would hear Death speak. And Life raised her voice a little higher and said, You hear him now.

Pity it is we drowse too soon Pity it is we fall asleep Ere our song encompass the height Ere our hand inherit the deep

We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.

All things in this creation exist within you and all things in you exist in creation; there is no border between you and the closest things, and there is no distance between you and the farthest things, and all things, from the lowest to the loftiest, from the smallest to the greatest, are within you as equal things.

And alone and without his nest shall the Eagle fly across the sun.

To love life through our labor is to be intimate with life's inmost secrets.

A look which reveals inward stress adds more beauty to the face, no matter how much tragedy and pain it bespeaks; but the face which, in silence, does not announce hidden mysteries is not beautiful, regardless of the symmetry of its features.

There is no secret in the mystery of life stronger and more beautiful than that attachment which converts the silence of a virgin's spirit into a perpetual awareness that makes a person forget the past, for it kindles fiercely in the heart the sweet and overwhelming hope of the coming future.

Am I a harp that the hand of the mighty may touch me, or a flute that his breath may pass through me? A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?

When you have grasped a problem clearly, face it with resolution, for that is the way of the strong.

Perhaps a man may commit suicide in self-defense.