Kahlil Gibran Quotes

[seeker]

post your favorite quotes by Kahlil Gibran, the author of The Prophet !!


Knowledge is life with wings.
(Kahlil Gibran’s Letter. November 15, 1917.)

Marriage doesn’t give one any rights in another person except such rights that a person gives -
nor any freedom except the freedom which that person gives.
(Kahlil Gibran from Mary Haskell’s Journal. May 27, 1923.)

Among intelligent people the surest basis for marriage is friendship - the sharing of real interests-
the ability to fight out ideas together and understand each other’s thoughts and dreams.
(Kahlil Gibran from Mary Haskell’s Journal. May 26, 1923.)

...what is there in a storm that moves me so ? Why am I so much better and stronger and more certain of life when a storm is passing ? I do not know, and yet I love a storm more, far more, than anything in nature.
(Kahlil Gibran’s letter August 14, 1912.)

I often picture myself living on a mountain top, in the most stormy country (not the coldest) in the world. Is there such a place ? If there is I shall go to it someday and turn my heart into pictures and poems.
(Kahlil Gibran’s letter March 1, 1914.)

I realized that all the trouble I ever had about you came from some smallness or fear in myself.
(From Mary Haskell’s Journal. June 12, 1912.)

Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.
(Kahlil Gibran’s letter November 8, 1908.)


"Live for yourself- live your life. Then you are most truly the friend
of man." -Kahlil Gibran

"You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one
with whom you have wept." -Kahlil Gibran


†
pura vida
dan

[crisaor]

Among intelligent people the surest basis for marriage is friendship - the sharing of real interests- the ability to fight out ideas together and understand each other’s thoughts and dreams.
(Kahlil Gibran from Mary Haskell’s Journal. May 26, 1923.)
I liked this one. But I think it can apply to anyone, without any restrictions whatsoever.

[Ron Price]

I just finished reading a biography of Gibran published in 1998 by Bushrui and Jenkins. it was full of good quotes and ideas. I wrote the following prose-poem. While not a quote, it certainly contains many of his ideas and thoughts about him.
____________________________
STUPENDOUS

Kahlil Gibran once wrote that Bahá'u'lláh’s Arabic writings were the most stupendous literature that ever was written. Of ‘Abdu’l-Baha he wrote that “for the first time I saw form noble enough to be a receptacle for the Holy Spirit.” This Lebanese writer who has sold more books than all the American poets from Auden to Whitman died in 1931. But he possesses a spectacular durability and a burgeoning reputation. In my early years as a teacher, back in 1968, a film was made about Gibran. It was called “The Broken Wings.” When I retired from teaching thirty years later in 1999 I was given one of the latest biographies on Gibran, one of the two that had come out in 1998. Gibran had hung around in the popular marketplace all my adult life. From my earliest years in which books became important, somewhere in about 1962, Gibran’s soulful, doleful portrait stared at me from desks when I studied history and philosophy; it followed me into primary and high schools and would pop up in the most unpredictable places from Baffin island to Zeehan Tasmania. Gibran was, it seemed, an institution and a phenomenon and the author of the most widely-read book of the 20th century.1-Ron Price with thanks to Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran: Man and Poet, Oneworld, Oxford, 1998.

You seem to have followed me
like a shadow, like some second-
cousin in my religious life, out
there in the book shops, a copy
with a friend kept in their bag
or on a home-shelf. You died
just when we were getting our
organization together around
the finest writing in Arabic ever
created by the pen of a human.

You had the cadences of the King
James Version in tantalizing paradox,
eternal pronunciamentos, some said
a patented blend of emptiness and
pretension from a man who craved
tranquillity and obscurity back home.

But the age was becoming more complex
and your simple solutions would not do,
would not be enough for our troubled age.
Ours was an age for falcons and eagles
not the simple, sweet flying birds,
aphorisms for the unpredictable tempest
that was shaking our world apart.
Still, you were eloquent and beautiful
and your lonely voice reached millions,
for you had touched the world of the
Imagination that would save us all,
the world of that stupendous writing
from the greatest Being to have lived.

Ron Price
June 2nd 2006

[Pensive]

There is another one:

Life is a great experiment - Khalil Gibran

[smilingtearz]

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

this was my signature sometime back

[Shakira]

Friendship: Quotes Kahlil Gibran
You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

Overcoming Failure: Quotes Khalil Gibran
A shy failure is nobler than an immodest success.

Love: Quotes Khalil Gibran
And think not you can guide the course of love. For love, if it finds you worthy, shall guide your course.

Love: Quotes Khalil Gibran
If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were.

Success: Quotes Khalil Gibran
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.

Life: Quotes Khalil Gibran
Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.

Love: Quotes Khalil Gibran
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; for love is sufficient unto love.

Insight: Quotes Khalil Gibran
Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.

Optimism: Quotes Khalil Gibran
The optimist sees the rose and not its thorns; the pessimist stares at the thorns, oblivious of the rose.

Life: Quotes Khalil Gibran
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love buy only with distaste it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take aims of those who work with joy.

Success: Quotes Khalil Gibran
Work is love made visible. And if you can't work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of the people who work with joy.

[Shakira]

“It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.”

[Shakira]

My favorite :

“Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.”

[Shakira]

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.”

[Gibran]

I love Gibran best-and my screen name came from him,too! :thumbs_up
Uh..most of his quotes were collected in SAND AND FOAM,here are some:

I am forever walking upon these shores,
Betwixt the sand and the foam,
The high tide will erase my foot-prints,
And the wind will blow away the foam.
But the sea and the shore will remain
Forever.

Once I filled my hand with mist.

Then I opened it and lo, the mist was a worm.

And I closed and opened my hand again, and behold there was a bird.

And again I closed and opened my hand, and in its hollow stood a man with a sad face, turned upward.

And again I closed my hand, and when I opened it there was naught but mist.

But I heard a song of exceeding sweetness.

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.

They say to me in their awakening, "You and the world you live in are but a grain of sand upon the infinite shore of an infinite sea."

And in my dream I say to them, "I am the infinite sea, and all worlds are but grains of sand upon my shore."

Only once have I been made mute. It was when a man asked me, "Who are you?"

The first thought of God was an angel.

The first word of God was a man.

We were fluttering, wandering, longing creatures a thousand thousand years before the sea and the wind in the forest gave us words.

Now how can we express the ancient of days in us with only the sounds of our yesterdays?

The Sphinx spoke only once, and the Sphinx said, "A grain of sand is a desert, and a desert is a grain of sand; and now let us all be silent again."

I heard the Sphinx, but I did not understand.

Long did I lie in the dust of Egypt, silent and unaware of the seasons.

Then the sun gave me birth, and I rose and walked upon the banks of the Nile,

Singing with the days and dreaming with the nights.

And now the sun threads upon me with a thousand feet that I may lie again in the dust of Egypt.

But behold a marvel and a riddle!

I'm be very glad to help when you're reading Khalil Gibran. :nod:

[Moira]

A man can be free without being great, but no man can be great without being free.
(From Gibran's letter to Mary Haskell dated 16th May 1913)


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 may 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.

[Moira]

Faces

I have seen a face with a thousand countenances, and a face that was but a single countenance as if held in a mould.

I have seen a face whose sheen I could look through to the ugliness beneath, and a face whose sheen I had to lift to see how beautiful it was.

I have seen an old face much lined with nothing, and a smooth face in which all things were graven.

I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath.

Sometimes you have not even begun to speak - and I am at the end of what you are saying.
(Gibran's words quoted from Mary Haskell's journal dated 28th July 1917)

[mazrimtwain]

Some seek pleasure in pain; and some cannot cleanse themselves except with filth.

Anyone have any thoughts on the meaning of this quote?

Thanks

[ThreeGables]

Some seek pleasure in pain; and some cannot cleanse themselves except with filth.

Anyone have any thoughts on the meaning of this quote?

Thanks

To me, this is a comment on man's perversity. There are those who find pleasure, meaning or fulfillment in things that most of us would find unpleasant or repugnant. Does the context of the quoted passage make this reading plausible?

[blazeofglory]

post your favorite quotes by Kahlil Gibran, the author of The Prophet !!


Knowledge is life with wings.
(Kahlil Gibran’s Letter. November 15, 1917.)

Marriage doesn’t give one any rights in another person except such rights that a person gives -
nor any freedom except the freedom which that person gives.
(Kahlil Gibran from Mary Haskell’s Journal. May 27, 1923.)

Among intelligent people the surest basis for marriage is friendship - the sharing of real interests-
the ability to fight out ideas together and understand each other’s thoughts and dreams.
(Kahlil Gibran from Mary Haskell’s Journal. May 26, 1923.)

...what is there in a storm that moves me so ? Why am I so much better and stronger and more certain of life when a storm is passing ? I do not know, and yet I love a storm more, far more, than anything in nature.
(Kahlil Gibran’s letter August 14, 1912.)

I often picture myself living on a mountain top, in the most stormy country (not the coldest) in the world. Is there such a place ? If there is I shall go to it someday and turn my heart into pictures and poems.
(Kahlil Gibran’s letter March 1, 1914.)

I realized that all the trouble I ever had about you came from some smallness or fear in myself.
(From Mary Haskell’s Journal. June 12, 1912.)

Let me, O let me bathe my soul in colours; let me swallow the sunset and drink the rainbow.
(Kahlil Gibran’s letter November 8, 1908.)


"Live for yourself- live your life. Then you are most truly the friend
of man." -Kahlil Gibran

"You may forget the one with whom you have laughed, but never the one
with whom you have wept." -Kahlil Gibran


†
pura vida
dan

Khalil is my all time favorite and never get tired of reading him, and I consider him a fountainhead of inspiration

[tracyull]

i love alot of these. they are great!

[donaldbracy]

"Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror".
Once i wrote an essay on kahlil gibran (http://essayscouncil.com/) at college. I used this quote in my essay too...

[hillwalker]

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 may 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.

My personal favourite of many.

If only all parents were given this advice before conceiving their offspring life might be more rewarding.

H

[cafolini]

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.
***
Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
***
Art is a step from what is obvious and well-known toward what is arcane and concealed.
***
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/k/khalil_gibran.html#ixzz1dhNgxS7O

[KCurtis]

I just picked up my copy of "The Prophet" where it was sitting on my bookshelf untouched for years. It was moldy, and the pages are brittle. I opened it and was reminded how much I love it, and the one on marriage was read at my wedding 29 years ago. I guess I listened to that read, as I am still married!
I will dust off this precious book and try to read it more.