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Kahlil Gibran: Historical photographic portraitHistorical photographic portrait

Kahlil Gibran

Life dates: 1883 AD — 1931 AD

Writer and visual artist who worked in Arabic and English. His poetic dialogues invite reflection, while contributor-supplied archive attributions retain their uncertainty.

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Life and writing

Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) was born in Bsharri, in what is now Lebanon, and later worked in the United States. He wrote in Arabic and English and also practised visual art. The Prophet appeared in 1923. These different forms matter when encountering an attributed sentence without its original setting.

In the linked Prophet, people ask a departing speaker about relationships, work and other experiences. “On Marriage” considers closeness alongside space between people; “On Giving” examines motives and receiving. Read a whole exchange before turning its image into a rule. The archive preserves supplied wording and does not authenticate every attributed passage.

Reading this voice

Start with a complete section of The Prophet and notice who speaks and what question prompts the response. The selected supplied passages relate to separation and togetherness, but their contributor wording is preserved without an edition-match claim. All entries under this attribution label remain independently unverified and undated. The profile’s life years do not backfill quotation dates; other Gibran name variants remain separate unresolved labels.

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Quotations and sayings

07c. 1907 AD
Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may livethrough its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.And since you are a breath in God’s sphere, and a leaf in God’s forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.
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10c. 1907 AD
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,the more joy you can contain.Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?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.
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14c. 1907 AD
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,For their 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 childrenas living arrows are sent forth.The archer sees the mark 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 loves also the bow that is stable.
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18c. 1907 AD
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,For their 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.
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24c. 1907 AD
Imagination sees the complete reality, - it is where past, present and future meet... Imagination is limited neither to the reality which is apparent - nor to one place. It lives everywhere. It is at a centre and feels the vibrations of all the circles within which east and west are virtually included. Imagination is the life of mental freedom. It realizes what everything is in its many aspects ... Imagination does not uplift: we don't want to be uplifted, we want to be more completely aware.
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