If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Religion
Oh Jesus, they have built these churches for the sake of their own glory, and embellished them with silk and melted gold… . They left the bodies of Thy chosen poor wrapped in tattered raiment in the cold night… . They filled the sky with the smoke of burning candles and incense and left the bodies of Thy faithful worshipers empty of bread… . They raised their voices with hymns of praise, but deafened themselves to the cry and moan of the widows and orphans. Come again, Oh Living Jesus, and drive the vendors of Thy faith from Thy sacred temple, for they have turned it into a dark cave where vipers of hypocrisy and falsehood crawl and abound.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Hypocrisy
He who requires urging to do a noble act will never accomplish it
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Accomplishment
The highest virtue here may be least in another world.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Perspective
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.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Generosity, Helping
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.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Love
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
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.
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 of you be alone,
Even as the strings of the lute are alone though they quiver
with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hands of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
—Kahlil Gibran
Here 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.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Loneliness
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Doubt, Uncertainty, Faith, Pain, Belief
Every thought I have imprisioned in expression I must free by my deeds.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Action
You are good when you strive to give of yourself. Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself. For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, ‘Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance.’ For to the fruit giving is a need as receiving is a need to the root.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Love, Earth
Sometimes in our lives we all have pain, we all have sorrow, but if we are wise we know there is always tomorrow.
—Kahlil Gibran
He who understands you is greater kin to you than your own brother. For even your own kindred neither understand you nor know your true worth.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Brothers
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.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Love, Humanity
Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Adversity, The Mind, Difficulties
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.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Love, Disappointment, Regret, Compassion, Remorse
For this I bless you most: You give much and know not that you give at all.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Generosity
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. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Pain, Life, Joy, Win, Adversity, Love
All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Words
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
Topics: Goodness, Deeds, Good Deeds
They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Perception
Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Art
Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: The Body
Yes, there is a Nirvanah; it is in leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Contentment, Happiness, Gratitude, Blessings
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?
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Potential, Death
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Adversity
That deed which in our guilt we today call weakness, will appear tomorrow as an essential link in the complete chain of Man.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Guilt
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Pride, Generosity, Attitude
Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.
—Kahlil Gibran
The significance of a man is not in what he attains, but rather in what he longs to attain.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Goal, Achievements, Desires
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Henry David Thoreau American Philosopher
John Cage American Composer
Catherine of Siena Italian Mystic
Ralph Waldo Emerson American Philosopher
Pythagoras Greek Philosopher
Johann Gottfried Herder German Poet, Literary Critic
Alfred Korzybski Polish-American Philosopher
William James American Philosopher
Nicholas Murray Butler American Philosopher
Eric Hoffer American Philosopher