Kahlil Gibran Quotes

277 Sourced Quotes

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.
I would not have thee believe in what I say nor trust in what I do — for my words are naught but thy own thoughts in sound and my deeds thy own hopes in action.

Kahlil Gibran
The thirst of soul is sweeter than the wine of material things, and the fear of spirit is dearer than the security of the body.

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. fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

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

Kahlil Gibran
I have existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.
I soared into limitless space and took wing in the imaginal world, approaching the circle of exalted light; and here I am now, mired in matter.
I listened to the teachings of Confucius, imbibed the wisdom of Brahma, and sat beside Buddha beneath the tree of insight. And now I am here, wrestling with ignorance and unbelief. I was on Sinai when Yahweh shed his effulgence on Moses; at the River Jordan I witnessed the miracles of the Nazarene; and in Medina I heard the words of the Messenger to the Arabs. And here I am now, a captive of confusion.

Kahlil Gibran
I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath.

Kahlil Gibran
If [the teacher] is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Kahlil Gibran
Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.

Kahlil Gibran
In the depths of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Kahlil Gibran
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born.
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.

Kahlil Gibran
You hate Jesus because someone from the North Country said He was the Son of God. But you hate one another because each of you deems himself too great to be the brother of the next man.

Kahlil Gibran
If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts.

Kahlil Gibran
Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end.

Kahlil Gibran
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor, into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Kahlil Gibran
Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.

Kahlil Gibran
Poet, Singer, Great Heart,
May our God bless your name,
And the womb that held you, and the breasts that gave you milk.
And may God forgive us all.

Kahlil Gibran
And if you would know God, be not therefore a solver of riddles. Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children. And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.

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
The philosopher's soul dwells in his head, the poet's soul is in his heart; the singer's soul lingers about his throat, but the soul of the dancer abides in all her body.

Kahlil Gibran
How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.

Kahlil Gibran
He stood up and looked at me even as the seasons might look down upon the field, and He smiled. And He said again: "All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself."
And then He walked away.
But no other man ever walked the way He walked. Was it a breath born in my garden that moved to the east? Or was it a storm that would shake all things to their foundations?
I knew not, but on that day the sunset of His eyes slew the dragon in me, and I became a woman, I became Miriam, Miriam of Mijdel.

Kahlil Gibran
Defeat, my defeat, my deathless courage, You and I shall laugh together with the storm, And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, and we shall stand in the sun with a will, And we shall be dangerous

Kahlil Gibran
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.

Kahlil Gibran
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Kahlil Gibran
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.

Kahlil Gibran
Your body is the harp of your soul and it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.

Kahlil Gibran
The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.

Kahlil Gibran
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.

Kahlil Gibran
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

Kahlil Gibran
And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives. Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings; For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free hearted earth for mother, and God for father.

Kahlil Gibran