1,015 Quotes by Khalil Gibran

My friend, I am not what I seem. Seeming is but a garment I wear — a care-woven garment that protects me from thy questionings and thee from my negligence. The "I" in me, my friend, dwells in the house of silence, and therein it shall remain for ever more, unperceived, unapproachable.

My house says to me, "Do not leave me, for here dwells your past."And the road says to me, "Come and follow me, for I am your future."And I say to both my house and the road, "I have no past, nor have I a future. If I stay here, there is a going in my staying; and if I go there is a staying in my going. Only love and death will change all things.

Half of what I say is meaningless; but I say it so that the other half may reach you.

What shall i say of these save that they too stand in the sunlight, but with their backs to the sun?They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.

Let your home be you mast and not your anchor.

Your house shall be not an anchor but a mastIt shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound, but an eyelid that guards the eye.

And then a scholar said, "Speak of talking." And he answered, saying: "And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

Fear not the phantom of death, My Countrymen, for his greatnessAnd mercy will refuse to approachYour smallness; and dread not the Dagger, for it will decline to beLodged in your shallow hearts.

My loneliness was born when men praised my talkative faults and blamed my silent virtues.