Kahlil Gibran Quotes

277 Sourced Quotes

For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, "Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks."
Thus I became a madman.
And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.
But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.

Kahlil Gibran
In the depth of my soul there is
A wordless song - a song that lives
In the seed of my heart.
It refuses to melt with ink on
Parchment; it engulfs my affection
In a transparent cloak and flows,
But not upon my lips.

Kahlil Gibran
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.

Kahlil Gibran
For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky, whose door is the morning mist, and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night.

Kahlil Gibran
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.

Kahlil Gibran
And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.

Kahlil Gibran
I would tell you more of Him, but how shall I?
When love becomes vast love becomes wordless.
And when memory is overladen it seeks the silent deep.

Kahlil Gibran
Here and there, betwixt the cradle and the coffin, I meet your silent brothers,
The free men, unshackled,
Sons of your mother earth and space.
They are like the birds of the sky,
And like the lilies of the field.
They live your life and think your thoughts,
And they echo your song.
But they are empty-handed,
And they are not crucified with the great crucifixion,
And therein is their pain.
The world crucifies them every day,
But only in little ways.
The sky is not shaken,
And the earth travails not with her dead.

Kahlil Gibran
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may livethrough its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.

Kahlil Gibran
You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care, nor your nights without a want and a grief, but rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

Kahlil Gibran
If it were not for guests all houses would be graves.

Kahlil Gibran
Tears have cleansed my eyes, and errors have taught me the language of the hearts.

Kahlil Gibran
Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

Kahlil Gibran
Let ignorance reproduce itself until it is weary of its own offspring.

Kahlil Gibran
You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

Kahlil Gibran
Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.

Kahlil Gibran
Cover me with soft earth, and let each handful be mixed With seeds ofjasmine, lilies, and myrtle; and when they Grow above me and thrive on my body's element they will Breathe the fragrance of my heart into space.

Kahlil Gibran
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.

Kahlil Gibran
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

Kahlil Gibran
Yet you shall not deplore having known blindness, nor regret having been deaf. For in that day you shall know the hidden purposes in all things. And you shall bless darkness as you would bless light.

Kahlil Gibran
The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.

Kahlil Gibran
Perhaps the sea's definition of a shell is the pearl.

Kahlil Gibran
Perhaps time's definition of coal is the diamond.

Kahlil Gibran
Unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

Kahlil Gibran
I am one of those who believe that spiritual progress is a rule of human life, but the approach to perfection is slow and painful. If a woman elevates herself in one respect and is retarded in another, it is because the rough trail that leads to the mountain peak is not free of ambushes of thieves and lairs of wolves.

Kahlil Gibran
He alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.

Kahlil Gibran
A pearl is a temple built by pain around a grain of sand.

Kahlil Gibran
A scientist without imagination is a butcher with dull knives and out-worn scales.

Kahlil Gibran
You, the strong, have I loved, though the marks of your iron hoofs are yet upon my flesh.

Kahlil Gibran
Why dispute what we shall be, when we know not even what we are.

Kahlil Gibran