Inspirational Quotes by Kahlil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)

Inspirational Quotations by Kahlil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)

Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931,) was a Lebanese-American poet, artist, and writer. His most notable work The Prophet has inspired song lyrics and political speeches, and have been recited at weddings and funerals all around the world.

Gibran’s writings in both Arabic and English are deeply romantic, displaying his religious and mystical nature. Political leaders considered his thoughts poisonous to youth. One of his books, Al-Arwah al-Mutamarrida (1908; Rebellious Spirits,) was burnt in the Beirut’s souks shortly after it was published.

Gibran was also a painter schooled in the symbolist tradition in Paris in 1908. He mixed with the intellectual elite of his time, including figures such as W. B. Yeats, Carl Jung, and Auguste Rodin. He painted over 700 pictures, watercolors, and drawings.

By the 1930s, Gibran had become a prominent and charismatic figure within the Lebanese community and New York literary circles. Much of his success is attributable to Mary Haskell, a progressive Boston schoolteacher who became his sponsor, confidante, and editor. Their affiliation developed into a love affair; though Gibran proposed to her twice, they never married.

Gibran is best known for The Prophet (1923.) Translated into over 50 languages, it has sold over 100 million copies worldwide. The book’s 26 prose poems are presented as sermons by a fictional wise man called Al Mustapha. On the verge of setting sail for his homeland after 12 years in exile, the people of the island that was his home ask him to share his wisdom on the big questions of life: love, marriage, family, children, work, and death.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Kahlil Gibran

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