A biography for Khalil Gibranhasn’t been written yet.
“Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.”
“There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.”
“Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.”
“I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art.”
“If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember.”
“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.”
“Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.”
“Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity.”
“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.”
“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.”
“Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.”
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.”
“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.”
“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?”
“Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood.”
“Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”
“And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”