Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese-born philosophical essayist, writer, novelist, poet, and visual artist.
Although he received no formal schooling during his youth in Lebanon, the priests visited him regularly and taught him about the Arabic language and the Bible. Gibran emigrated with his family to the U.S. as a pre-teen, where he began his literary career and studied art, writing in both Arabic and English.
He is best known for his book The Prophet (1923) — a collection of philosophical essays written in English poetic prose, exploring the meaning of life and the condition of man. The Prophet has also been translated into as many as 110 languages.
In the world of Arabic literature, Gibran was regarded as a rebel for not complying with “the old ways.” As an artist, he created hundreds of paintings and drawings. He is also the third-best-selling poet of all time, behind Laozi and Shakespeare.
Listed below are the top 76 Khalil Gibran quotes and sayings that show his thoughts and views regarding life, wisdom, love, and many more.
Table of Contents
Khalil Gibran Quotes About Wisdom
1. “Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”
2. “Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in your seeds.”
3. “Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.”
4. “Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.”
5. “Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.”
6. “I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.”
7. “A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.”
8. “All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.”
9. “No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”
10. “You have your ideology and I have mine.”
11. “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.”
12. “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.”
13. “Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.”
14. “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
Khalil Gibran Quotes About Love
1. “Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.”
2. “Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”
3. “Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.”
4. “Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.”
5. “If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.”
6. “Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
7. “If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”
8. “Love… it surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.”
9. “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.”
10. “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.”
11. “Love is trembling happiness.”
12. “Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”
13. “Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.”
Khalil Gibran Quotes About Life
1. “Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.”
2. “Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.”
3. “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.”
4. “Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.”
5. “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.”
6. “Of life’s two chief prizes, beauty, and truth, I found the first in a loving heart and the second in a laborer’s hand.”
7. “To be able to look back upon one’s life in satisfaction, is to live twice.”
8. “For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”
Khalil Gibran Quotes About Friendship
1. “In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
2. “Your friend is your needs answered.”
3. “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?”
4. “Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”
5. “When we turn to one another for counsel, we reduce the number of our enemies.”
6. “Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
Khalil Gibran Quotes About Giving
1. “You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
2. “Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.”
3. “There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.”
4. “Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.”
5. “Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.”
Khalil Gibran, More Quotes & Sayings
1. “Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.”
2. “Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.”
3. “I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.”
4. “If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.”
5. “Exaggeration is a truth that has lost its temper.”
6. “Much of your pain is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.”
7. “I prefer to be a dreamer among the humblest, with visions to be realized, than lord among those without dreams and desires.”
8. “The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.”
9. “Safeguarding the rights of others is the noblest and beautiful end of a human being.”
10. “To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.”
11. “Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.”
12. “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.”
13. “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.”
14. “Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.”
15. “Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.”
16. “Say not, I have found the truth, but rather, I have found a truth.”
17. “Zeal is a volcano, the peak of which the grass of indecisiveness does not grow.”
18. “Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.”
19. “Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.”
20. “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.”
21. “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?”
22. “All that spirits desire, spirits attain.”
23. “Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”
24. “The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.”
25. “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
26. “Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.”
27. “Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.”
28. “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.”
29. “If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.”
30. “If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.”
If you would like to know more about Khalil Gibran, we would suggest you read one of his masterpiece, The Prophet.
