Kahlil Gibran Quotes - Page 2

Shall I come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean.
Kahlil Gibran
But you, children of space, you restless in rest, you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Kahlil Gibran
What is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
Kahlil Gibran
Let there be spaces in your togetherness.And let the wind of the heavens dance between you.
Kahlil Gibran
I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.
Kahlil Gibran
If you can see only what light reveals and hear only what sound announces, then in truth you do not see nor do you hear.
Kahlil Gibran
Know, therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return..... Forget not that I shall come back to you....A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and anohter woman shall bear me.
Kahlil Gibran
Art thou like me, child of my darkest heart? And dost thou think my untamed thoughts and speak my vast language?” “Yea, we are twin brothers, O, Night; for thou revealest space and I reveal my soul.
Kahlil Gibran
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
Kahlil Gibran
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.
Kahlil Gibran
He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy
Kahlil Gibran
Life kisses our faces every morning. Yet, between morning and evening, she laughs at our sorrows.
Kahlil Gibran
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Kahlil Gibran
Some of our children are our justifications and some are but our regrets.
Kahlil Gibran
Long ago you were a dream in your mother's sleep, and then she awoke to give you birth.
Kahlil Gibran
Then said a teacher , speak to us of teaching . And he said :The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple among his followers gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.The astronomer may spaeak to you of his understanding of space , but he cannot give you his understanding.The musician may sing to you of the rythem which is in all space , but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rythem nor the voice that echoes it .And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure , but he cannot conduct you thither .For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man .
Kahlil Gibran
We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.
Kahlil Gibran
I have seen a face with a thousand countenances, and a face that was but a single countenance as if held in a mould. I have seen a face whose sheen I could look through to the ugliness beneath, and a face whose sheen I had to lift to see how beautiful it was. I have seen an old face much lined with nothing, and a smooth face in which all things were graven. I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath.
Kahlil Gibran
Smile, my beloved, like the gold smiles from my father's coffers.
Kahlil Gibran
And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?
Kahlil Gibran
Life is an island in an ocean of solitude and seclusion.Life is an island, rocks are its desires, trees its dreams, and flowers its loneliness, and it is in the middle of an ocean of solitude and seclusion.Your life, my friend, is an island separated from all other islands and continents. Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains,secluded its happiness and far away in its compassion and hidden in its secrets and mysteries.I saw you, my friend, sitting upon a mound of gold, happy in your wealth and great in your riches and believing that a handful of gold is the secret chain that links the thoughts of the people with your own thoughts and links their feeling with your own.I saw you as a great conqueror leading a conquering army toward the fortress, then destroying and capturing it.On second glance I found beyond the wall of your treasures a heart trembling in its solitude and seclusion like the trembling of a thirsty man within a cage of gold and jewels, but without water.I saw you, my friend, sitting on a throne of glory surrounded by people extolling your charity, enumerating your gifts, gazing upon you as if they were in the presence of a prophet lifting their souls up into the planets and stars. I saw you looking at them, contentment and strength upon your face, as if you were to them as the soul is to the body.On the second look I saw your secluded self standing beside your throne, suffering in its seclusion and quaking in its loneliness. I saw that self stretching its hands as if begging from unseen ghosts. I saw it looking above the shoulders of the people to a far horizon, empty of everything except its solitude and seclusion.I saw you, my friend, passionately in love with a beautiful woman, filling her palms with your kisses as she looked at you with sympathy and affection in her eyes and sweetness of motherhood on her lips; I said, secretly, that love has erased his solitude and removed his seclusion and he is now within the eternal soul which draws toward itself, with love, those who were separated by solitude and seclusion.On the second look I saw behind your soul another lonely soul, like a fog, trying in vain to become a drop of tears in the palm of that woman.Your life, my friend, is a residence far away from any other residence and neighbors.Your inner soul is a home far away from other homes named after you. If this residence is dark, you cannot light it with your neighbor's lamp; if it is empty you cannot fill it with the riches of your neighbor; were it in the middle of a desert, you could not move it to a garden planted by someone else.Your inner soul, my friend, is surrounded with solitude and seclusion. Were it not for this solitude and this seclusion you would not be you and I would not be I. If it were not for that solitude and seclusion, I would, if I heard your voice, think myself to be speaking; yet, if I saw your face, i would imagine that I were looking into a mirror.
Kahlil Gibran
And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair
Kahlil Gibran
Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky.
Kahlil Gibran
You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.Yet the timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.And that that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?And is not time even as love is, undivided and spaceless?But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.
Kahlil Gibran
There must be something strangely sacred in salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.
Kahlil Gibran
Life is not only merriment,It is desire and determination.
Kahlil Gibran
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
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
I too am my own forerunner, though I sit in the shadows of my trees and seem motionless.
Kahlil Gibran
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit
Kahlil Gibran
And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart:Your seeds shall live in my body,And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart,And your fragrance shall be my breath,And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons.
Kahlil Gibran
I deserted the world and sought solitude because I became tired of rendering courtesy to those multitudes who believe that humility is a sort of weakness, and mercy a kind of cowardice, and snobbery a form of strength.
Kahlil Gibran
When a man kills another man, the people say he is a murderer, but when the Emir kills him, the Emir is just. When a man robs a monastery, they say he is a thief, but when the Emir robs him of his life, the Emir is honourable. When a woman betrays her husband, they say she is an adulteress, but when the Emir makes her walk naked in the streets and stones her later, the Emir is noble. Shedding of blood is forbidden, but who made it lawful for the Emir? Stealing one's money is a crime, but taking away one's life is a noble act. Betrayal of a husband may be an ugly deed, but stoning of living souls is a beautiful sight. Shall we meet evil with evil and say this is the Law? Shall we fight corruption with greater corruption and say this is the Rule? Shall we conquer crimes with more crimes and say this is Justice? Had not the Emir killed an enemy in his past life? Had he not robbed his weak subjects of money and property? Had he not committed adultery? Was he infallible when he killed the murderer and hanged the thief in the tree? Who are those who hanged the thief in the tree? Are they angels descended from heaven, or men looting and usurping? Who cut off the murderer's head? Are they divine prophets, or soldiers shedding blood wherever they go? Who stoned that adulteress? Were they virtuous hermits who came from their monasteries, or humans who loved to commit atrocities with glee, under the protection of ignorant Law? What is Law? Who saw it coming with the sun from the depths of heaven? What human saw the heart of God and found its will or purpose? In what century did the angels walk among the people and preach to them, saying, "Forbid the weak from enjoying life, and kill the outlaws with the sharp edge of the sword, and step upon the sinners with iron feet?
Kahlil Gibran
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.You are the way and the wayfarers.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.
Kahlil Gibran
One hour devoted to mourning and lamenting theStolen equality of the weak is nobler than aCentury filled with greed and usurpation.
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children. They are sons and daughters of the Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts.
Kahlil Gibran
There are those among you who seek the talkative through fear of being alone.The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.And there are those who talk, and without knowledge or forethought reveal a truth which they themselves do not understand.And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.In the bosom of such as these the spirit dwells in rhythmic silence.
Kahlil Gibran
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.
Kahlil Gibran
And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man.
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you.And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.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 thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.
Kahlil Gibran
I have a yearning for my beautiful country, and I love its people because of their misery. But if my people rose, simulated by plunder and motivated by what they call "patriotic spirit" to murder, and invaded my neighbour's country, then upon the committing of any human atrocity I would hate my people and my country.
Kahlil Gibran
When you see a man led to prison say in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping from a narrower prison." And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful.
Kahlil Gibran
You may judge others only according to your knowledge of yourself.
Kahlil Gibran
You make such a noise falling! You scatter all my winter dreams
Kahlil Gibran
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.But your ears thirst for the sound of your 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 your dreams.
Kahlil Gibran
Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.For what is evil but good tortured by it’s own hunger and thirst?Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts it drinks even of dead waters.
Kahlil Gibran
you are good when you strive to give of yourself.
Kahlil Gibran
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Kahlil Gibran
I cannot tarry longer.The sea that calls all things unto her calls me
Kahlil Gibran
Death changes nothing but the masks that cover our faces.
Kahlil Gibran
Self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Kahlil Gibran
And a man said, speak to us of self-knowledge.and he answered, saying:Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.But your ears thirst for the sound of your 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 your dreams.And it is well that you should.The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;and the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
Kahlil Gibran
My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.
Kahlil Gibran
It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.
Kahlil Gibran
Ready am I to go, and my eagerness with sails full set awaits the wind.Only another breath will I breathe in this still air, only another loving look cast backward,
Kahlil Gibran
Not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.
Kahlil Gibran
Verily the kindness that gazes upon itself in a mirror turns to stone,And a good deed that calls itself by tender names becomes the parent to a curse
Kahlil Gibran
Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.
Kahlil Gibran
To belittle, you have to be little.
Kahlil Gibran
The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.
Kahlil Gibran