Try an author, a thought, or a phrase in “quotes”.↑ ↓ Navigate · Esc Close

0 words found

Explore all results ↗
Kahlil Gibran: Historical photographic portraitHistorical photographic portraitFred Holland Day / Metropolitan Museum of Art; CC0 · CC0

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.

▷ Play this voiceSearch these words ↗Place in time ↗lovelifetimeknowledgepeacefriendshipfaithdeath

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.

Subjects to explore

Words to begin with

Profile sources and editorial notes

Agent-assisted editorial profile, updated 2026-10-05. A human reviewer is not recorded. Biographical context does not independently authenticate every quotation attributed to this person.

Quotations and sayings

05c. 1907 AD
You would measure time the measureless and the immeasurable.You would adjust your conduct and even direct the course of your spirit according to hours and seasons.Of time you would make a stream upon whose bank you would sit and watch its flowing.Yet 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?And yet who does not feel that very love, though boundless, encompassed within the centre of his being, and moving not from love thought to love thought, nor from love deeds to other love deeds?And is not time even as love is, undivided and spaceless?But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.
↗
12c. 1907 AD
Then said a teacher , speak to us of teaching . And he said :The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple among his followers gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.The astronomer may spaeak to you of his understanding of space , but he cannot give you his understanding.The musician may sing to you of the rythem which is in all space , but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rythem nor the voice that echoes it .And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure , but he cannot conduct you thither .For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man .
↗