Quotes from 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.

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

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

Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.

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

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

You progress not through improving what has been done, but reaching toward what has yet to be done.

You see but your shadow when you turn your back to the sun.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself... 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.

Your confidence in the people, and your doubt about them, are closely related to your self-confidence and your self-doubt.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.

Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes.

The significance of a man is not in what he attains but rather in what he longs to attain.

The tiny flame that lights up the human heart is like a blazing torch that comes down from heaven to light up the paths of mankind. For in one soul are contained the hopes and feelings of all Mankind.

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

Life without love is like a tree without blossom and fruit.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

Every beauty and greatness in this world is created by a single thought or emotion inside a man. Every thing we see today, made by past generations, was, before its appearance, a thought in the mind of a man or an impulse in the heart of a woman.

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.

In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

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

The biggest thing in today's sorrow is the memory of yesterday's joy.

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.