Top 774 Quotes & Sayings by Khalil Gibran - Page 10

Where are you now, my beloved? Do you hear my weeping From beyond the ocean? Do you understand my need? Do you know the greatness of my patience?

One may not reach the dawn save by path of night.

These things he said in words. But much in his heart remained unsaid. For he himself could not speak his deeper secret.

The power to Love is God's greatest gift to man, For it never will be taken from the Blessed one who loves.

You are your own forerunner, and the towers you have builded are but the foundation of your giant-self. And that self too shall be a foundation.

If a man loses a dear friend, he looks around and sees many friends come to console and comfort him. If a man loses his wealth, after a little thought he will realize that the delight that came from wealth will be restored by finding more. Thus he forgets his loss and is consoled. But if a man's heart is deprived of peace, where will he find it again, how will he replace it?

And alone and without his nest shall the Eagle fly across the sun.

You, the strong, have I loved, though the marks of your iron hoofs are yet upon my flesh.

Qualities of Good Citizens... is to admire what others have created in love and faith

Knowledge and understanding are life's faithful companions who will never prove untrue to you. For knowledge is your crown, and understanding your staff; and when they are with you, you can possess no greater treasures.

Wit is often a mask. If you tear it you will find either genius irritated or cleverness juggling.

God has given you a spirit with wings on which to soar into the spacious firmament of Love and Freedom. Is it not pitiful than that you cut your wings with your own hands and suffer your soul to crawl like an insect upon the earth?

The human heart cries out for help; the human soul implores us for deliverance; but we do not heed their cries, for we neither hear nor understand. But the man who hears and understands we call mad, and flee from him. Thus the nights pass, and we live in unawareness; and the days greet us and embrace us. But we live in constant dread of day and night.

Seven times have I despised my soul: The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.

...unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.

Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today, made by past generations, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman.

Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?

If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts.

Like sheaves of corn it gathers you unto itself. It threshes you to make you naked. It sifts you to free you from your husks. It grinds you to whiteness. It kneads you until you are pliant. And then it assigns you to its sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast. All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's Heart.

In friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures.

When you work you fulfill a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit. It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit. Work is love made visible

Poverty hides itself in thought before it surrenders to purses.

Some of our children are our justifications and some are but our regrets

Happiness is a myth we seek, If manifested surely irks; Like river speeding to the plain, On its arrival slows and murks. For man is happy only in His aspiration to the heights; When he attains his goal, he cools And longs for other distant flights.

When you see a man led to prison say in your heart, "Mayhap he is escaping from a narrower prison." And when you see a man drunken say in your heart, "Mayhap he sought escape from something still more unbeautiful.

Braving obstacles and hardships is braver than retreat to tranquility.

Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.

Extreme torture is mute, and so we sat silent, petrified, like columns of marble buried under the sand of an earthquake. Neither wished to listen to the other because our heart-threads had become weak and even breathing would have broken them.

Life is but a sleep disturbed by dreaming, prompted by the will; the saddened soul with sadness hides it's secrets, and the gay, with thrill.

In the depth of my soul there is A wordless song - a song that lives In the seed of my heart. It refuses to melt with ink on Parchment; it engulfs my affection In a transparent cloak and flows, But not upon my lips.

Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.

No lower can a man descend than to interpret his dreams into gold and silver.

He who does not seek advice is a fool. His folly blinds him to Truth and makes him evil, stubborn, and a danger to his fellow man.

You who are strong and swift, see that you do not limp before the lame, deeming it kindness.

Each thing that exists remains forever, and that very existence of existence is proof of its eternity. But without that realization, which is the knowledge of perfect being, man would never know whether there was existence or non-existence. If eternal existence is altered, then it must become more beautiful; and if it disappears, it must return with more sublime image; and if it sleeps, it must dream of a better awakening, for it is ever greater upon its rebirth.

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.

Love prides itself not only in the one who loves, but also in the beloved.

We fear death, yet we long for slumber and beautiful dreams.

If it's a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.

Like the ocean is your god-self; It remains for ever undefiled. And like the ether it lifts but the winged. Even like the sun is your god-self; It knows not the ways of the mole nor seeks it the holes of the serpent. But your god-self does not dwell alone in your being. Much in you is still man, and much in you is not yet man, But a shapeless pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for its own awakening.

Solitude has soft, silky hands, but with strong fingers it grasps the heart and makes it ache with sorrow.

The highest virtue here may be least in another world.

A fox looked at his shadow at sunrise and said, “I will have a camel for lunch today.” And all morning he went about looking for camels. But at noon he saw his shadow again-and he said, “A mouse will do.

In truth we gaze but do not see, and hearken but do not hear; we eat and drink but do not taste. And there lies the difference between Jesus of Nazareth and ourselves. His senses were all continually made new, and the world to Him was always a new world.

What is fear of need but need itself?

There is within me a friend who consoles me every time that troubles overwhelm me and misfortunes afflict me. The man who does not feel friendship towards himself is a public enemy, and he who finds no confidant within himself will die of despair. For life streams out of man's inner self and in no way from what surrounds him.

What of the old serpent who cannot shed his skin, and calls all others naked and shameless?

When the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

We who love Him beheld Him with these our eyes which He made to see; and we touched Him with these our hands which He taught to reach forth.

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 may go swift and far.

How narrow is the vision that exalts the busyness of the ant above the singing of the grasshopper.

He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly.

The biggest thing in today's sorrow is the memory of yesterday's joy.

Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

Life has two halves: one patient and one afire. Love is the fiery half. Make me, O Lord, food for the flames.

It is slavery to live in the mind unless it has become part of the body

My brothers, seek counsel of one another, for therein lies the way out of error and futile repentance. The wisdom of the many is your shield against tyranny. For when we turn to one another for counsel we reduce the number of our enemies.

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