Kahlil Gibran Quotes

Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For thir souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.

Your daily life is your temple and your religion.

لا تجعل ثيابك أغلى شيءٍ فيك , حتى لا تجد نفسك يوماً أرخص ممّا ترتدي

There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.

ما أغربني عندما أشكو ألما فيه لذتي

فاسمعي يا صغيرتي الحلوة، إذا تخاصمنا في المستقبل (هذا إذا كان لا بد من الخصام) يجب أن لا نفترق مثلما كنّا نفعل في الماضي بعد كل معركة. يجب أن نبقى، برغم الخصام، تحت سقف بيت واحد حتى نملّ الخصام فنضحك، أو يملّنا الخصام فيذهب هازًا رأسه.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me never to delight in praise or to be distressed by reproach. Before my Soul taught me, I doubted the value of my accomplishments until the passing days sent someone who would extol or disparage them. But now I know that trees blossom in the spring and give their fruits in the summer without any desire for accolades. And they scatter their leaves abroad in the fall and denude themselves in the winter without fear of reproof.

Master, Master Poet, Master of words sung and spoken, They have builded temples to house your name, And upon every height they have raised your cross, A sign and a symbol to guide their wayward feet, But not unto your joy. Your joy is a hill beyond their vision, And it does not comfort them. They would honour the man unknown to them. And what consolation is there in a man like themselves, a man whose kindliness is like their own kindliness, A god whose love is like their own love, And whose mercy is in their own mercy? They honour not the man, the living man, The first man who opened His eyes and gazed at the sun With eyelids unquivering. Nay, they do not know Him, and they would not be like Him.

انما القصد من الوجود ... الطموح الى ما وراء الوجود

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.

It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations.

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

I believe that you can say to Abraham Lincoln, the blessed, "Jesus of Nazareth touched your lips when you spoke, and guided your hand when you wrote; and I shall uphold all that you have said and all that you have written." I believe that you can say to Emerson and Whitman and James, "In my veins runs the blood of the poets and wise men of old, and it is my desire to come to you and receive, but I shall not come with empty hands." I believe that even as your fathers came to this land to produce riches, you were born here to produce riches by intelligence, by labor. I believe that it is in you to be good citizens.

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.

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