Khalil Gibran Quotes

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

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

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.

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.

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

And when one of you meets the other half, take care of him and cherish him until the end, regardless of the illusions.

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.

Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.

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.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

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.

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.

You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept.

The significance of a man is not in what he attains, but rather in what he longs to attain.

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.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

If you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work.

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

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.

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.

To be able to look back upon one’s past life with satisfaction is to live twice.

Say not, ‘I have found the path of the soul.’ Say rather, ‘I have met the soul walking upon my path.’

Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.

Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the ‘still small voice’ within me.

Suffering is a treasure, for it contains mercies.

You may chain my hands, you may shackle my feet, but inner freedom is invincible.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.

We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.

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.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

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

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.

If your home is a place of peace, you have succeeded.