Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) was a Lebanese-American poet, philosopher, and artist, renowned for his profound and timeless works. Born in Bsharri, Lebanon, Gibran immigrated to the United States in the early 20th century. His most famous work, “The Prophet,” a collection of poetic essays, gained international acclaim for its wisdom and universal themes. Gibran’s writings encompassed topics such as love, freedom, and spirituality, reflecting a synthesis of Eastern and Western philosophies. Besides his literary contributions, he was also a skilled visual artist, with his drawings and paintings complementing his poetic expressions. Khalil Gibran’s influence extended far beyond his lifetime, making him one of the most translated and widely read authors in the world. His legacy continues to inspire readers seeking insight into the complexities of the human experience.
Khalil Gibran Quotes
1. “One day you will ask me which is more important – my life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.”
— Khalil Gibran
2. “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
— Khalil Gibran
3. “If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were.”
— Khalil Gibran
4. “We are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side.”
— Khalil Gibran
5. “Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”
— Khalil Gibran
6. “Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future, but from wanting to control it.”
— Khalil Gibran
7. “To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.”
— Khalil Gibran
8. “I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.”
— Khalil Gibran
9. “It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone and a day to love someone, but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.”
— Khalil Gibran
10. “Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need. ”
— Khalil Gibran
11. “Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.”
— Khalil Gibran
12. “Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
— Khalil Gibran
13. “You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
— Khalil Gibran
14. “Rest in reason. Move in Passion.”
— Khalil Gibran
15. “We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
— Khalil Gibran
16. “Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.”
— Khalil Gibran
17. “The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious to the rose.”
— Khalil Gibran
18. “They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold, and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”
— Khalil Gibran
19. “A man’s true wealth is the good he does in the world.”
— Khalil Gibran
20. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
21. “Only love and death will change all things.”
— Khalil Gibran
22. “I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.”
— Khalil Gibran
23. “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”
— Khalil Gibran
24. “But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”
— Khalil Gibran
25. “Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.”
— Khalil Gibran
26. “Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”
— Khalil Gibran
27. “A thief is a man in need. A liar is a man in fear.”
— Khalil Gibran
28. “Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”
— Khalil Gibran
29. “Mother: the most beautiful word on the lips of mankind.”
— Khalil Gibran
30. “Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”
— Khalil Gibran
31. “Much of your pain is self-chosen.”
— Khalil Gibran
32. “Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.”
— Khalil Gibran
33. “Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.”
— Khalil Gibran
34. “All things in this vast universe exist in you, with you, and for you.”
— Khalil Gibran
35. “Many of us spend our whole lives running from feeling with the mistaken belief that you can not bear the pain. But you have already borne the pain. What you have not done is feel all you are beyond that pain.”
— Khalil Gibran
36. “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”
— Khalil Gibran
37. “The reality of the other person is not in what he reveals to you, but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.”
— Khalil Gibran
38. “We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.”
— Khalil Gibran
39. “Oh, Lord God, have mercy on me and mend my broken wings.”
— Khalil Gibran
40. “The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.”
— Khalil Gibran
41. “And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
— Khalil Gibran
42. “Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”
— Khalil Gibran
43. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
44. “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility.”
— Khalil Gibran
45. “A traveller I am, and a navigator, and every day I discover a new region within my soul.”
— Khalil Gibran
46. “Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky, We fell them down and turn them into paper, That we may record our emptiness.”
— Khalil Gibran
47. “Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.”
— Khalil Gibran
48. “Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.”
— Khalil Gibran
49. “Our worst fault is our preoccupation with the faults of others.”
— Khalil Gibran
50. “Hearts united in pain and sorrow will not be separated by joy and happiness. Bonds that are woven in sadness are stronger than the ties of joy and pleasure. Love that is washed by tears will remain eternally pure and faithful.”
— Khalil Gibran
51. “The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe.”
— Khalil Gibran
52. “There must be something strangely sacred about salt. It is in our tears and in the sea.”
— Khalil Gibran
53. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
54. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
55. “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”
— Khalil Gibran
56. “The power to Love is God’s greatest gift to man, For it never will be taken from the Blessed one who loves.”
— Khalil Gibran
57. “Remembrance is a form of meeting.”
— Khalil Gibran
58. “A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”
— Khalil Gibran
59. “Prayer is the song of the heart. It reaches the ear of God even if it is mingled with the cry and the tumult of a thousand men.”
— Khalil Gibran
60. “Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”
— Khalil Gibran
61. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
62. “If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”
— Khalil Gibran
63. “Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.”
— Khalil Gibran
64. “Hell is not in torture; Hell is in an empty heart…”
— Khalil Gibran
65. “When I planted my pain in the field of patience it bore fruit of happiness.”
— Khalil Gibran
66. “The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.”
— Khalil Gibran
67. “It was in my heart to help a little because I was helped much.”
— Khalil Gibran
68. “In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things, the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
— Khalil Gibran
69. “The earth is like a beautiful bride who needs no manmade jewels to heighten her loveliness…”
— Khalil Gibran
70. “There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.”
— Khalil Gibran
71. “Tortoises can tell you more about the road than hares.”
— Khalil Gibran
72. “You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts, And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.”
— Khalil Gibran
73. “When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.”
— Khalil Gibran
74. “I have passed the mountain peak and my soul is soaring in the firmament of Complete and unbounded freedom; I am in comfort, I am in peace.”
— Khalil Gibran
75. “True love cannot be found where it truly does not exist, Nor can it be hidden where it truly does. Anonymous Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.”
— Khalil Gibran
76. “It has been said that next to hunger and thirst, our most basic human need is for storytelling.”
— Khalil Gibran
77. “What the soul knows is often unknown to the man who has a soul. We are infinitely more than we think.”
— Khalil Gibran
78. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
79. “My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.”
— Khalil Gibran
80. “Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains.”
— Khalil Gibran
81. “But memory is an autumn leaf that murmurs a while in the wind and then is heard no more.”
— Khalil Gibran
82. “Even while the Earth sleeps we travel.”
— Khalil Gibran
83. “Limited love asks for possession of the beloved, but the unlimited asks only for itself.”
— Khalil Gibran
84. “Of life’s two chief prizes, beauty, and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer’s hand.”
— Khalil Gibran
85. “For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”
— Khalil Gibran
86. “I AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein lies my honor and my reward.”
— Khalil Gibran
87. “Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.”
— Khalil Gibran
88. “March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns or the sharp stones on life’s path.”
— Khalil Gibran
89. “One may not reach the dawn save by path of night.”
— Khalil Gibran
90. “When a man’s hand touches the hand of a woman, they both touch the heart of eternity.”
— Khalil Gibran
91. “Your body is the harp of your soul and it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.”
— Khalil Gibran
92. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
93. “Friendship with the ignorant is as foolish as arguing with a drunkard.”
— Khalil Gibran
94. “I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.”
— Khalil Gibran
95. “I had a second birth when my soul and my body loved one another and were married.”
— Khalil Gibran
96. “The lust for comfort kills the passions of the soul.”
— Khalil Gibran
97. “The true wealth of a nation lies not in its gold or silver but in its learning, wisdom and in the uprightness of its sons.”
— Khalil Gibran
98. “Say not, I have found the path of the soul Say rather, I have met the soul walking upon my path.”
— Khalil Gibran
99. “We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision.”
— Khalil Gibran
100. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
101. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
102. “You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.”
— Khalil Gibran
103. “And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.”
— Khalil Gibran
104. “To belittle, you have to be little.”
— Khalil Gibran
105. “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
— Khalil Gibran
106. “Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.”
— Khalil Gibran
107. “And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.”
— Khalil Gibran
108. “Education sows not seeds in you, but makes your seeds grow.”
— Khalil Gibran
109. “Spare me the political events and power struggles, as the whole earth is my homeland and all men are my fellow countrymen.”
— Khalil Gibran
110. “Every man is two men; one is awake in the darkness, the other asleep in the light.”
— Khalil Gibran
111. “If I accept the sunshine and warmth, then I must also accept the thunder and lightning.”
— Khalil Gibran
112. “If you would behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death are one, even as the river and sea are one.”
— Khalil Gibran
113. “The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.”
— Khalil Gibran
114. “How beautiful to find a heart that loves you, without asking you for anything, but to be okay.”
— Khalil Gibran
115. “Let there be spaces in your togetherness.”
— Khalil Gibran
116. “There is a desire deep within the soul which drives man from the seen to the unseen, to philosophy and to the divine.”
— Khalil Gibran
117. “I do not want you to hear that I LOVE you, but I want you to feel it without me having to say.”
— Khalil Gibran
118. “Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.”
— Khalil Gibran
119. “And alone and without his nest shall the Eagle fly across the sun.”
— Khalil Gibran
120. “Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you.”
— Khalil Gibran
121. “A friend who is far away is sometimes much nearer than one who is at hand. Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?”
— Khalil Gibran
122. “From a sensitive woman’s heart springs the happiness of mankind, and from the kindness of her noble spirit comes mankind’s affection.”
— Khalil Gibran
123. “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
— Khalil Gibran
124. “You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.”
— Khalil Gibran
125. “Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”
— Khalil Gibran
126. “Solitude is a silent storm that breaks down all our dead branches, yet it sends our living roots deeper into the living heart of the living earth.”
— Khalil Gibran
127. “He is short-sighted who looks only on the path he treads and the wall on which he leans.”
— Khalil Gibran
128. “Your confidence in the people, and your doubt about them, are closely related to your self-confidence and your self-doubt.”
— Khalil Gibran
129. “Remember, one just man causes the Devil greater affliction than a million blind believers.”
— Khalil Gibran
130. “I discovered the secret of the sea in meditation upon a dewdrop.”
— Khalil Gibran
131. “I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea. We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together is deep and strong and strange.”
— Khalil Gibran
132. “Listen to the woman when she looks at you, not when she talks to you.”
— Khalil Gibran
133. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
134. “One’s own religion is after all a matter between oneself and one’s Maker and no one else’s.”
— Khalil Gibran
135. “In every winter’s heart, there is a quivering spring, and behind the veil of each night there is a shining dawn.”
— Khalil Gibran
136. “Marriage is like a golden ring in a chain, whose beginning is a glance and whose ending is eternity.”
— Khalil Gibran
137. “You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.”
— Khalil Gibran
138. “Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.”
— Khalil Gibran
139. “Say not, ‘I have found the truth,’ but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’”
— Khalil Gibran
140. “Marriage is like a temple resting on two pillars. If they come too close to each other the temple will collapse.”
— Khalil Gibran
141. “Wisdom is not in words; Wisdom is meaning within words.”
— Khalil Gibran
142. “Desire is half of life, indifference is half of death.”
— Khalil Gibran
143. “For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”
— Khalil Gibran
144. “If winter should say, ‘Spring is in my heart,’ who would believe winter?”
— Khalil Gibran
145. “History does not repeat itself except in the minds of those who do not know history.”
— Khalil Gibran
146. “You are far, far greater than you know – and all is well.”
— Khalil Gibran
147. “Darkness is dawn not yet born.”
— Khalil Gibran
148. “The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.”
— Khalil Gibran
149. “When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.”
— Khalil Gibran
150. “I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.”
— Khalil Gibran
151. “Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.”
— Khalil Gibran
152. “In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence.”
— Khalil Gibran
153. “When you are born, your work is placed in your heart.”
— Khalil Gibran
154. “Like the seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.”
— Khalil Gibran
155. “Perhaps a man may commit suicide in self-defense.”
— Khalil Gibran
156. “A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.”
— Khalil Gibran
157. “Nature reaches out to us with welcoming arms, and bids us enjoy her beauty; but we dread her silence and rush into the crowded cities, there to huddle like sheep fleeing from a ferocious wolf.”
— Khalil Gibran
158. “The love of a parent for a child is the love that should grow towards separation.”
— Khalil Gibran
159. “If we were to all sit in a circle and confess our sins, we would laugh at each other for lack of originality.”
— Khalil Gibran
160. “It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding; and to the open-handed, the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving.”
— Khalil Gibran
161. “For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”
— Khalil Gibran
162. “Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
— Khalil Gibran
163. “Love is the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the spirit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course.”
— Khalil Gibran
164. “Spiritual awakening is the most essential thing in man’s life, and it is the sole purpose of being. Is not civilization, in all its tragic forms, a supreme motive for spiritual awakening?”
— Khalil Gibran
165. “And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.”
— Khalil Gibran
166. “Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life.”
— Khalil Gibran
167. “Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.”
— Khalil Gibran
168. “Love is not without its flaws. The stronger the love, the more it tests you. Compassion and empathy will make true love persist.”
— Khalil Gibran
169. “Enthusiasm is a volcano on whose top never grows the grass of hesitation.”
— Khalil Gibran
170. “People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
— Khalil Gibran
171. “All can hear, but only the sensitive can understand…”
— Khalil Gibran
172. “Women opened the windows of my eyes and the doors of my spirit. Had it not been for the woman-mother, the woman-sister, and the woman-friend, I would have been sleeping among those who seek the tranquility of the world with their snoring.”
— Khalil Gibran
173. “The silence of the envious is too noisy.”
— Khalil Gibran
174. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
175. “Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.”
— Khalil Gibran
176. “The most solid stone in the structure is the lowest one in the foundation.”
— Khalil Gibran
177. “A word I want to see written on my grave: I am alive like you, and I am standing beside you. Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you.”
— Khalil Gibran
178. “When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.”
— Khalil Gibran
179. “We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.”
— Khalil Gibran
180. “Love is life sharing, not for hurt, Love is alive both not ambiguous. Love is the whole life, not an affair.”
— Khalil Gibran
181. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
182. “The biggest thing in today’s sorrow is the memory of yesterday’s joy.”
— Khalil Gibran
183. “All work is empty save when there is love.”
— Khalil Gibran
184. “Should you really open your eyes and see, you would behold your image in all images. And should you open your ears and listen, you would hear your own voice in all voices.”
— Khalil Gibran
185. “There is a space between man’s imagination and man’s attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.”
— Khalil Gibran
186. “Only those beneath me can envy or hate me. I have never been envied nor hated; I am above no one. Only those above me can praise or belittle me. I have never been praised nor belittled; I am below no one.”
— Khalil Gibran
187. “For Reason, ruling alone is a force confining; and Passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.”
— Khalil Gibran
188. “Forgetfulness is a form of freedom.”
— Khalil Gibran
189. “For love is sufficient unto love.”
— Khalil Gibran
190. “Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.”
— Khalil Gibran
191. “Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colors; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.”
— Khalil Gibran
192. “He who denies his heritage has no heritage.”
— Khalil Gibran
193. “Sow a seed and the earth will yield you a flower. Dream your dream to the sky and it will bring you your beloved.”
— Khalil Gibran
194. “Seven times have I despised my soul: The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.”
— Khalil Gibran
195. “Perhaps time’s definition of coal is the diamond.”
— Khalil Gibran
196. “My God, my aim and my fulfillment; I am thy yesterday and thou are my tomorrow. I am they root in the earth and thou art my flower in the sky, and together we grow before the face of the sun.”
— Khalil Gibran
197. “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.”
— Khalil Gibran
198. “God made Truth with many doors to welcome every believer who knocks on them.”
— Khalil Gibran
199. “If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.”
— Khalil Gibran
200. “Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you.”
— Khalil Gibran
