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
Come with us to the field, or go with our brothers to the sea and cast your net. For the land and the sea shall be bountiful to you even as to us.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Riches
An exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Exaggeration, Truth
The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Wealth, Dreams
You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one with whom you have wept.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Laughter
A singer cannot delight you with his singing unless he himself delights to sing.
—Kahlil Gibran
Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?
—Kahlil Gibran
I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Desire, Humility, Modesty
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.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Wisdom
When we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Advice
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.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Time
Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Fools, Difficulty
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too self-ful to seek other than itself.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Wisdom, Laughter
Let your best be for your friend…
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Friends and Friendship
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
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. 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.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Crying, Joy, Sympathy, Perspective
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; 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.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Instincts, Reason, Love
Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Faith
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
Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Knowledge
Every thought I have imprisioned in expression I must free by my deeds.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Action
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
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you,
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows might go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Children, Growth
The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Simplicity, Time Management, Value of a Day
Say not, I have found the truth, but rather, I have found a truth.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Truth
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
—Kahlil Gibran
The highest virtue here may be least in another world.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Perspective
Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Faith
A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Poetry
Your friend is your needs answered.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Friends and Friendship
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?
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Friendship
Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Poetry, Writing, Words, Joy
Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: War
Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Progress
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Love
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Doubt, Faith, Uncertainty, Belief, Pain
When you give of your possessions, you give but little; it is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Self-Discovery, Give, Helpfulness, Kindness, Service, Charity, Giving, Helping
The earth is like a beautiful bride who needs no manmade jewels to heighten her loveliness.
—Kahlil Gibran
The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Safety
Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Attitude
The teacher gives not of his wisdom, but rather of his faith and lovingness.
—Kahlil Gibran
Topics: Teaching
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