Gibran Khalil Gibran (…January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran[c]…was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and visual artist; he was also considered a philosopher, although he himself rejected the title.[5] He is best known as the author of The Prophet, which was first published in the United States in 1923 and has since become one of the best-selling books of all time, having been translated into more than 100 languages.[d]

…Gibran's life has been described as one "often caught between Nietzschean rebellion, Blakean pantheism and Sufi mysticism."[10] Gibran discussed different themes in his writings and explored diverse literary forms. Salma Khadra Jayyusi has called him "the single most important influence on Arabic poetry and literature during the first half of [the twentieth] century,"[14] and he is still celebrated as a literary hero in Lebanon.[15] At the same time, "most of Gibran's paintings expressed his personal vision, incorporating spiritual and mythological symbolism,"[16] with art critic Alice Raphael recognizing in the painter a classicist, whose work owed "more to the findings of Da Vinci than it [did] to any modern insurgent."

…Gibran explored literary forms as diverse as "poetry, parables, fragments of conversation, short stories, fables, political essays, letters, and aphorisms."[91] Two plays in English and five plays in Arabic were also published posthumously between 1973 and 1993; three unfinished plays written in English towards the end of Gibran's life remain unpublished (The Banshee, The Last Unction, and The Hunchback or the Man Unseen).[92] Gibran discussed "such themes as religion, justice, free will, science, love, happiness, the soul, the body, and death"[93] in his writings, which were "characterized by innovation breaking with forms of the past, by symbolism, an undying love for his native land, and a sentimental, melancholic yet often oratorical style."[94] According to Salma Jayyusi, Roger Allen and others, Gibran as the leading poet of the Mahjar school belongs to Romantic (neo-romantic) movement.[95][96]

"That which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space."

"We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting."

“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”

“If your heart is a volcano, how shall you expect flowers to bloom?”

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

“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.”

“To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but what he aspires to.”
“The lust for comfort murders the passions of the soul.”
“Much of your pain is self-chosen.”
“The real test of good manners is to be able to put up with bad manners pleasantly.”
"Life without freedom is like a body without a soul and freedom without thought is confusion."
“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”
“Yesterday is but today’s memory, and tomorrow is today’s dream.”
“Rest in reason; move in passion.”
"Do not the spirits who dwell in the ether envy man his pain?"
“Our worst fault is our preoccupation with the faults of others.”
“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.”
“I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.”
“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don't, they never were.”
“One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours? I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.”
"We extract your elements to make cannons and bombs but out of our elements you create lilies and roses. How patient you are Earth and how merciful!"
"When you love you should not say God is in my heart, but rather I am in the heart of God."

“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.
“It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone... but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.”
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 thier 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.”