Kahlil Gibran Quotes

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter1883–1931 36 quotes

Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist, born in Bsharri in Mount Lebanon in 1883. He emigrated to the United States with his mother and siblings as a boy, grew up in Boston, and later studied art in Paris before settling in New York in 1911.

He is best known for The Prophet, first published in 1923, which has been translated into more than 100 languages and is among the best-selling books ever printed. Writing in both Arabic and English, he became one of the strongest influences on Arabic literature of his time and remains a literary hero in Lebanon. He died in 1931, at 48.
Most quoted works
  • The Prophet 84
  • Sand and Foam 22
  • The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran 5
  • Love Letters in the Sand: The Love Poems of Khalil Gibran 4
  • The Madman 4
  • The Broken Wings 3
Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

— The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

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.

— Mirrors of the Soul

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked. The wind and the sun will tear no holes in his skin.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

For Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.

— Sand and Foam

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, asthe mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

A woman protested saying, "Of course it was a righteous war. My son fell in it.".

— Sand and Foam

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

When you were a wandering desire in the mist, I too was there, a wandering desire. Then we sought one another, and out of our eagerness dreams were born. And dreams were time limitless, and dreams were space without measure.

— Sand and Foam / The Forerunner

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us.

— The Madman

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

Men who do not forgive women their little faults will never enjoy their great virtues.

— Sand and Foam

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

The professors in the academy say, “Do not make the model more beautiful than she is,” and my soul whispers, “O if you could only paint the model as beautiful as she really is.

— Beloved Prophet: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell, and Her Private Journal

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

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.

— The Broken Wings

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

Speak not of peoples and laws and / Kingdoms, for the whole earth is / My birthplace and all humans are / My brothers.

— The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone. Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

— The Prophet

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

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

— The Broken Wings

Lebanese-American writer, poet, and painter

Believing is a fine thing, but putting those beliefs into execution is a test of strength.

— The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran