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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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Words to begin with

Quotations and sayings

02c. 1907 AD
And a man said, speak to us of self-knowledge.and he answered, saying:Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.And it is well that you should.The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;and the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
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06c. 1907 AD
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. 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 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.
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20c. 1907 AD
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.You are the way and the wayfarers.And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
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