Quotes - Khalil Gibran

1- 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?

Kahlil Gibran

2- A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

Kahlil Gibran

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

Kahlil Gibran


4 - All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

Kahlil Gibran


5 - All that spirits desire, spirits attain.

Kahlil Gibran


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

Kahlil Gibran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.
Kahlil Gibran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Love is trembling happiness.
Kahlil Gibran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
Kahlil Gibran

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

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

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

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

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
Kahlil Gibran

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You have your ideology and I have mine.
Kahlil 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.
Kahlil 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.
Kahlil Gibran

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

Your friend is your needs answered.
Kahlil 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.
Kahlil Gibran

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

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

• Name : Gibran Khalil Gibran bin Mikha'il bin Sa'ad
• Born : January 6, 1883(1883-01-06)
• Country : Bsharri, Ottoman Syria (modern day Lebanon)
• Died : April 10, 1931 (aged 48) New York City, United States
• Occupation : Poet, Painter, Sculptor, Writer, Philosopher, Theologian, Visual Artist
• Nationality : Lebanese-American
• Genres : Poetry, Parable, Short Story
• Literary movement : Mahjar, New York Pen League
• Notable work(s) : The Prophet

Khalil Gibran was born on January 6, 1883, to the Maronite family of Gibran in Bisharri, a mountainous area in Northern Lebanon. Lebanon at the time was a Turkish province, part of Greater Syria (Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine) and subjugated to Ottoman dominion. His mother Kamila Rahmeh was thirty when she begot Gibran from her third husband Khalil Gibran, a tax collector who proved to be an irresponsible husband leading the family to poverty. Gibran had a half-brother six years older than him called Butros and two younger sisters, Mariana and Sultana, to whom he was deeply attached throughout his life, along with his mother. Kamila came from a family with a presti gious religious background, which imbued the uneducated mother with a strong will and later helped her raise up the family on her own.

Growing up in the lush region of Bsharri, Khalil proved to be a solitary and pensive child who relished the natural surroundings of the cascading falls, the rugged cliffs and the neighboring green cedars, the beauty of which emerged as a dramatic and symbolic influence to his drawings and writings. Being laden with poverty, his education was limited to visits to a village priest who doctrined him with the essentials of religion and the Bible, alongside Syriac and Arabic languages. Recognizing Gibran's inquisitive and alert nature, the priest began teaching him the rudiments of alphabet and language, opening up to Gibran the world of history, science, and language. At the age of ten, Gibran fell off a cliff, wounding his left shoulder, which remained weak for the rest of his life ever since. To relocate the shoulder, his family strapped it to a cross and wrapped it up for forty days, a symbolic incident reminiscent of Christ's wanderings in the wilderness and which remained etched in Gibran's memory.

At the age of eight, Khalil Gibran, Gibran's father, was accused of tax evasion and was sent to prison as the Ottomon authorities confiscated the Gibrans' property and left them homeless. The family went to live with relatives for a while; however, the strong-willed mother decided that the family should immigrate to the United States, seeking a better life and following in suit to Gibran's uncle who immigrated earlier. The father was released in 1894, but—being an irresponsible head of the family—he was undecided about immigration and remained behind in Lebanon.

On June 25, 1895, the Gibrans embarked on a voyage to New York. They settled in Boston's South End, which at the time hosted the second largest Syrian community in the U.S. following New York. The culturally diverse area felt familiar to Kamila, who was comforted by the familiar spoken Arabic, and the widespread Arab customs. Kamila, now the bread-earner of the family, began to work as a peddler on the impoverished streets of South End Boston. At the time, peddling was the major source of income for most Syrian immigrants, who were negatively portrayed due to their unconventional Arab ways and their supposed idleness.

At the school, a registration mistake changed his name to Khalil Gibran, which remained so for the rest of his life despite repeated attempts at restoring his full name. He entered school on September 30, 1895, merely two months after his arrival in the New World. Having had no formal education, he was placed in an ungraded class reserved for immigrant children, who had to learn English from scratch. Gibran caught the attention of his teachers with his sketches and drawings, a hobby he had started during his childhood in Lebanon. They contacted Fred Holland Day, an artist himself but also a supporter of artists, who opened up Gibran's cultural world and set him on the road to fame.

In 1904 Gibran held his first art exhibition in Boston. From 1908 to 1910 he studied art in Paris with August Rodin. In 1912 he settled in New York, where he devoted himself to writing and painting. Gibran's early works were written in Arabic, but from 1918 he published mostly in English. In 1920 he founded Aribitah (the Pen Bond), a society for Arab writers. Among its members were Mikha'il Na'ima (1889-1988), Iliya Abu Madi (1889-1957), Nasib Arida (1887-1946), Nadra Haddad (1881-1950) and Ilyas Abu Sabaka (1903-47).

Khalil Gibran died on April 10, 1931 in a New York hospital. He was forty-eight years old and had liver cancer caused by a long term battle with alcohol. According to his wishes his family buried him where he was born, in Bsharri, Lebanon. The people who attended his burial service said it wasn't a time of mourning, but of celebration.

Gibran's works were especially influential in the American popular culture in the 1960's. His best known work is The Prophet, a collection of 26 poetic essays, which has been translated into over a hundred languages.

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