Khalil Gibran Quotes

A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?
Khalil Gibran

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.
Khalil Gibran

Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
Khalil Gibran

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.
Khalil Gibran

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.
Khalil Gibran

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Khalil Gibran

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Khalil Gibran

Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
Khalil Gibran

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
Khalil Gibran

But 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.
Khalil Gibran

Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
Khalil Gibran

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.
Khalil Gibran

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
Khalil Gibran

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Khalil Gibran

Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.
Khalil Gibran

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
Khalil Gibran

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
Khalil Gibran

For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
Khalil Gibran

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Khalil Gibran

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
Khalil Gibran

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
Khalil Gibran

Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.
Khalil Gibran

Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.
Khalil Gibran

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.
Khalil Gibran

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
Khalil Gibran

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.
Khalil Gibran

I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
Khalil Gibran

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
Khalil Gibran

If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.
Khalil Gibran

If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.
Khalil Gibran

If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.
Khalil Gibran

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.
Khalil Gibran

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.
Khalil Gibran

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

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?
Khalil Gibran

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Khalil Gibran

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.
Khalil Gibran

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

Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.
Khalil Gibran

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
Khalil Gibran

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
Khalil Gibran

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
Khalil Gibran

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.
Khalil Gibran

Love is trembling happiness.
Khalil Gibran

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Khalil Gibran

Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.
Khalil Gibran

Love... It surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.
Khalil Gibran

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.
Khalil Gibran

March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path.
Khalil Gibran

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.
Khalil Gibran

Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Khalil Gibran

No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
Khalil Gibran

Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.
Khalil Gibran

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.
Khalil Gibran

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.
Khalil Gibran

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
Khalil Gibran

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
Khalil Gibran

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Khalil Gibran

Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.
Khalil Gibran

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
Khalil Gibran


Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
Khalil Gibran

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
Khalil Gibran

Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
Khalil Gibran

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

The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.
Khalil Gibran

The just is close to the people's heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.
Khalil Gibran

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.
Khalil Gibran

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

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
Khalil Gibran

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.
Khalil Gibran

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.
Khalil Gibran

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
Khalil Gibran

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.
Khalil Gibran

Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.
Khalil Gibran

To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice.
Khalil Gibran

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
Khalil Gibran

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Khalil Gibran

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
Khalil Gibran

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

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
Khalil Gibran

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?
Khalil Gibran

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.
Khalil Gibran

When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.
Khalil Gibran

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 you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Khalil Gibran

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Khalil Gibran

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Khalil Gibran

Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?
Khalil Gibran

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.
Khalil Gibran

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
Khalil Gibran

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
Khalil Gibran

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.
Khalil Gibran

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
Khalil Gibran

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

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
Khalil Gibran

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

You have your ideology and I have mine.
Khalil Gibran

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.
Khalil Gibran

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Khalil Gibran

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

Your friend is your needs answered.
Khalil Gibran

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.
Khalil Gibran

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Khalil Gibran

Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.
Khalil Gibran