Khalil Gibran Quotes

You may chain my hands, you may shackle my feet; you may even throw me into a dark prison; but you shall not enslave my thinking, because it is free!

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

Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.

Work is love made visible.

A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world.

The best of man is he who blushes when you praise him and remains silent when you defame him.

The nearest to my heart are a king without a kingdom and a poor man who does not know how to beg.

The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

Tears have cleansed my eyes, and errors have taught me the language of the hearts.

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

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

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

When you are born, your work is placed in your heart.

Wisdom is not in words; Wisdom is meaning within words.

Life without Liberty is like a body without spirit. Liberty without thought is like a disturbed spirit.

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.

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

We are all prisoners but some of us are in cells with windows and some without.

Rest in reason. Move in Passion.

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

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.

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.

A thief is a man in need. A liar is a man in fear.

Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Listen to the women when she looks at you, not when she talks to you.

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

Hell is not in torture; Hell is in an empty heart.

All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself.

Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent.

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

Love that does not renew itself every day becomes a habit and in turn a slavery.

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

joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

How often have you sailed in my dreams. And now you come in my awakening, which is my deeper dream.

When you reach the heart of life you shall find beauty in all things, even in the eyes that are blind to beauty.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

It was but yesterday I thought myself a fragment quivering without rhythm in the sphere of life. Now I know that I am the sphere, and all life in rhythmic fragments moves within me.

Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

Nature reaches out to us with welcoming arms, and bids us enjoy her beauty; but we dread her silence and rush into the crowded cities, there to huddle like sheep fleeing from a ferocious wolf.

Be like the flower, turn your faces to the sun.

Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.

Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end.

I existed from all eternity and, behold, I am here; and I shall exist till the end of time, for my being has no end.

I discovered the secret of the sea in meditation upon a dewdrop.

There is a desire deep within the soul which drives man from the seen to the unseen, to philosophy and to the divine.

The truly great man is he who would master no one, and who would be mastered by none.

The strong grows in solitude where the weak withers away.