Kahlil Gibran Quotes

“Poetry is not the opinion stated. It is a song that appears instead of a bloody wound or a smiling mouth.”

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

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

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

“And your fragrance shall be my breath, And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.”

“All you have shall some day be given. Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors.”

“You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, and let the winds of the heavens dance between you.”

“It is only when you are pursued that you become swift.”

“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.”

“And you would accept the seasons of your heart just as you have always accepted that seasons pass over your fields and you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.”

“Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.”

“No lower can a man descend than to interpret his dreams into gold and silver.”

“A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether. And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.”

“We fear death, yet we long for slumber and beautiful dreams.”

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.”

“If I could take your troublesI would toss them into the sea,But all these things I'm findingAre impossible for me.I cannot build a mountainOr catch a rainbow fair,But let me be what I know best,A friend that is always there.”

“A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”

“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.”

“Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today, made by past generations, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman.”

“My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.”

“And now you ask in your heart, ‘How shall we distinguish that which is good in pleasure from that which is not good?’ Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, And to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy. * People of Orphalese, be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.”

“In battling evil, excess is good; for he who is moderate in announcing the truth is presenting half-truth. He conceals the other half out of fear of people's wrath.”

“I am the lover's gift; I am the wedding wreath; I am the memory of a moment of happiness; I am the last gift of the living to the dead; I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow.”

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

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