8 Khalil Gibran Quotes on Truth

Khalil Gibran quotes on truth

6. The tears that you spill, the sorrowful, are sweeter than the laughter of snobs and the guffaws of scoffers.

8. For the first time the sun kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, 'Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks.' Thus I became a madman. And I have found both freedom and safety in my madness; the freedom of loneliness and the safety from being understood, for those who understand us enslave something in us. But let me not be too proud of my safety. Even a Thief in a jail is safe from another thief.

9. 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. I would not have thee believe in what I say nor trust in what I do - for my words are naught but thy own thoughts in sound and my deeds thy own hopes in action.

10. I know faces, because I look through the fabric my own eye weaves, and behold the reality beneath.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

43. Master, Master Poet, Master of words sung and spoken, They have builded temples to house your name, And upon every height they have raised your cross, A sign and a symbol to guide their wayward feet, But not unto your joy. Your joy is a hill beyond their vision, And it does not comfort them. They would honour the man unknown to them. And what consolation is there in a man like themselves, a man whose kindliness is like their own kindliness, A god whose love is like their own love, And whose mercy is in their own mercy? They honour not the man, the living man, The first man who opened His eyes and gazed at the sun With eyelids unquivering. Nay, they do not know Him, and they would not be like Him.

54. Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

67. Your thought sees power in armies, cannons, battleships, submarines, aeroplanes, and poison gas. But mine asserts that power lies in reason, resolution, and truth. No matter how long the tyrant endures, he will be the loser at the end. Your thought differentiates between pragmatist and idealist, between the part and the whole, between the mystic and materialist. Mine realizes that life is one and its weights, measures and tables do not coincide with your weights, measures and tables. He whom you suppose an idealist may be a practical man.

72. The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you, but what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says, but rather to what he does not say.