Kahlil Gibran Quotes

“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.”

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

“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!”

“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.”

“In friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures.”

“We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.”

“And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.”

“When you are sorrowful, look again.”

“Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.”

“How can I lose faith in the justice of life, when the dreams of those who sleep upon feathers are not more beautiful than the dreams of those who sleep upon the earth?”

“Darkness is dawn not yet born.”

“And what word is knowledge but a shadow of wordless knowledge?”

“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.”

“If any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife, let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.”

“Yea, death and prison we mete out To small offenders of the laws, While honor, wealth, and full respect On greater pirates we bestow. To steal a flower we call mean. To rob a field is chivalry; Who kills the body he must die, Who kills the spirit he goes free.”

“The best love come from the heart, not from the mouth.”

“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.”

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

“Sayings remain meaningless until they are embodied in habits.”

“Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.” “Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving”

“And when you were a silent word upon Life's quivering lips, I too was there, another silent word. Then life uttered us and we came down the years throbbing with memories of yesterday and with longing for tomorrow, for yesterday was death conquered and tomorrow was birth pursued.”

“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.”

“Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.”

“Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?”

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