Best Khalil Gibran Quotes

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.

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.

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

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

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.

You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?

If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.

The lights of stars that were extinguished ages ago still reaches us. So it is with great men who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiations of their personalities.

When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.

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.

Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.

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

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house as a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.

Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Say not, I have found the truth, but rather, I have found a truth.

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.

Your friend is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.

Work is love made visible. And if you can't 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 the people who work with joy.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?

Seek ye counsel of the aged for their eyes have looked on the faces of the years and their ears have hardened to the voices of Life. Even if their counsel is displeasing to you, pay heed to them.

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.

An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.

No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

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

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.

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

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

Life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, and all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, and all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love.

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.

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

Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and enlivens the other who turns it on his fellow man.

I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.

Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.

The chemist who can extract from his heart's elements, compassion, respect, longing, patience, regret, surprise, and forgiveness and compound them into one can create that atom which is called love.

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

The teacher gives not of his wisdom, but rather of his faith and lovingness.

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

Beauty in not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.

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