Kahlil Gibran Quotes

“Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names.”

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

“Do not be merciful, but be just, for mercy is bestowed upon the guilty criminal, while Justice is all that the innocent man requires.”

“Inspiration is in seeing a part of the whole with the part of the whole in you.”

“The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe.”

“Virtue tested: "Have I not survived hunger and thirst, suffering, and mockery for the sake of the truth which heaven has awakened in my heart?”

“And let to-day embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.”

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

“Said one oyster to a neighboring oyster, "I have a very great pain within me. It is heavy and round and I am in distress." And the other oyster replied with haughty complacence, "Praise be to the heavens and to the sea, I have no pain within me. I am well and whole both within and without." At that moment a crab was passing by and heard the two oysters, and he said to the one who was well and whole both within and without, "Yes, you are well and whole; but the pain that your neighbor bears is a pearl of exceeding beauty."”

“Birth and Death are the two noblest expressions of bravery.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“They say: 'If a man knew himself, he would know all mankind.' I say: 'If a man loved mankind, he would know something of himself.”

“And some of your elders remember pleasures with regret like wrongs committed in drunkenness. But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement. They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.”

“When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.”

“Like sheaves of corn it gathers you unto itself. It threshes you to make you naked. It sifts you to free you from your husks. It grinds you to whiteness. It kneads you until you are pliant. And then it assigns you to its sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast. All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's Heart.”

“Some who are too scrupulous to steal your possessions nevertheless see no wrong in tampering with your thoughts.”

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

“Only those beneath me can envy or hate me. I have never been envied nor hated; I am above no one. Only those above me can praise or belittle me. I have never been praised nor belittled; I am below no one.”

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

“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.”

“All work is empty save when there is love.”

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

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”