Kahlil Gibran

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Kahlil Gibran

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

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
Kahlil Gibran

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.
Kahlil Gibran

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?
Kahlil Gibran

A poet is a bird of unearthly excellence, who escapes from his celestial realm arrives in this world warbling. If we do not cherish him, he spreads his wings and flies back into his homeland.
Kahlil Gibran

Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.
Kahlil Gibran

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.
Kahlil Gibran

An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.
Kahlil Gibran

And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
Kahlil Gibran

And the self-same well from which your laughter rises was often-times filled with your tears.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

Cast aside those who liken godliness to whimsy and who try to combine their greed for wealth with their desire for a happy afterlife.
Kahlil Gibran

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
Kahlil Gibran

“House”, courtesy Jim Irons Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.
Paramahansa Yogananda

The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.
Paramahansa Yogananda

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
Dalai Lama

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
Dalai Lama

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.
Dalai Lama

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
Dalai Lama

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
Dalai Lama

Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful: a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.
Dalai Lama

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.
Dalai Lama

Sleep is the best meditation.
Dalai Lama

Spend some time alone every day.
Dalai Lama

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
Dalai Lama

The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.
Dalai Lama

There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness.
Dalai Lama

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Dalai Lama

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.
Dalai Lama

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.
Dalai Lama

Whether one believes in a religion or not, and whether one believes in rebirth or not, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t appreciate kindness and compassion.
Dalai Lama

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

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
Kahlil Gibran

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.
Kahlil Gibran

“Anini Beach”, courtesy Jim Irons

Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.
Kahlil Gibran

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.
Kahlil Gibran

Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
Kahlil Gibran

Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper.
Kahlil Gibran

Faith is an oasis in the heart which will never be reached by the caravan of thinking.
Kahlil Gibran

For what is it to die, but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?
Kahlil Gibran

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.
Kahlil Gibran

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.
Kahlil Gibran

Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

Hallow the body as a temple to comeliness and sanctify the heart as a sacrifice to love; love recompenses the adorers.
Kahlil Gibran

I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
Kahlil Gibran

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
Kahlil Gibran

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.
Kahlil Gibran

I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.
Kahlil Gibran

If my survival caused another to perish, then death would be sweeter and more beloved.
Kahlil Gibran

If the grandfather of the grandfather of Jesus had known what was hidden within him, he would have stood humble and awe-struck before his soul.
Kahlil Gibran

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

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don’t, they never were.
Kahlil Gibran

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.
Kahlil Gibran

If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil 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.
Kahlil Gibran

Knowledge cultivates your seeds and does not sow in you seeds.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.
Kahlil Gibran

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.
Kahlil Gibran

Love… It surrounds every being and extends slowly to embrace all that shall be.
Kahlil Gibran

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.
Kahlil Gibran

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.
Kahlil Gibran

Nor shall derision prove powerful against those who listen to humanity or those who follow in the footsteps of divinity, for they shall live forever. Forever.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Kahlil Gibran

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.
Kahlil Gibran Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.
Kahlil Gibran

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.
Kahlil Gibran

Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.
Kahlil Gibran

Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be.
Kahlil Gibran

Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert.
Kahlil Gibran

Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
Kahlil Gibran

Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.
Kahlil Gibran

The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.
Kahlil Gibran

The just is close to the people’s heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.
Kahlil Gibran

The most pitiful among men is he who turns his dreams into silver and gold.
Kahlil Gibran

The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply.
Kahlil Gibran

The person you consider ignorant and insignificant is the one who came from God, that he might learn bliss from grief and knowledge from gloom.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.
Kahlil Gibran

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

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.
Kahlil Gibran

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
Kahlil Gibran

We were a silent, hidden thought in the folds of oblivion, and we have become a voice that causes the heavens to tremble.
Kahlil Gibran

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?
Kahlil Gibran

What do the nationalists say about killers punishing murderers and thieves sentencing looters?
Kahlil Gibran

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

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?
Kahlil Gibran

Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer?
Kahlil Gibran

Where is the justice of political power if it… marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?
Kahlil Gibran

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfful to seek other than itself.
Kahlil Gibran

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
Kahlil Gibran

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot 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 those who work with joy.
Kahlil Gibran

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.
Kahlil Gibran

Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.
Kahlil Gibran

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
Kahlil Gibran

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

You have your ideology and I have mine.
Kahlil Gibran

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