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Kahlil Gibran Quotations

Osho on Kahlil Gibran
Eckhart Tolle Quotes
Ravindranath Tagore Quotes
Kahlil Gibran Quotes from Prophet

Kahlil Gibran Quotations from "The Prophet"

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
The fruit cannot say to the root, "Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance."
For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.
You are good when you are fully awake in your speech.
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
Your children are not your children.
They are the 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.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day
cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
If you would know God be not therefore a solver of riddles.
Rather look about you and you shall see Him playing with your children.
And look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud,
outstretching His arms in the lightning and descending in rain.
You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving His hands in trees.
Your clothes conceal much of your beauty,
yet they hide not the unbeautiful.
And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy
you may find in them a harness and a chain.
Would that you could meet the sun and the wind
with more of your skin and less of your raiment,
For the breath of life is in the sunlight and the hand of life is in the wind.
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.
For if you bake bread with indifference,
you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,
your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,
you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness,
And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
And that that which sings and contemplates in you
is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment
which scattered the stars into space.
Who among you does not feel that his power to love is boundless?
When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.
Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;
For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered.