Tours and Vacations for Women

Kahlil Gibran

Few writers are as widely circulated or universally beloved as the Lebanese writer and artist Kahlil Gibran, known primarily for his influential 1923 book The Prophet, and the third best-selling poet of all time.

Born in 1883 in Bsharri, then a part of the Ottoman Empire, Gibran emigrated to the United States as a child but never forgot his Lebanese roots - upon his death at just 48 years old, the future American royalties from his books were willed entirely to his hometown, and he was buried in Lebanon according to his wishes. A proponent of peace and the fundamental unity of religions, he wrote that "You are my brother and I love you. I love you when you prostrate yourself in your mosque, and kneel in your church and pray in your synagogue. You and I are sons of one faith—the Spirit." Although he was raised as a Maronite Christian, he was also influenced by Islam, Sufism, and theosophism, and his poems often incorporate the theme of spiritual love.

In addition to prose and poetry, Gibran was an accomplished artist who studied at the Academie Julian in Paris and produced over 700 works including portraits of his friends WB Yeats, Carl Jung, and Auguste Rodin.

His most enduring work, The Prophet, is composed of 26 poetic essays written in English on the topics of love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death. Translated into over 40 different languages, it has never been out of print - popular with people from all walks of life, it was especially treasured by Elvis Presley, who read passages to his mother and gave away many copies as gifts to friends.

The Gibran Museum in Bsharri was opened after his death at the site of the former Mar Sarkis Monastery purchased by his sister Mariana and Mary Haskell, his close friend, patroness, and editor of his English works. It is also his final resting place.

Quotes:

"Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity."

"I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers."

"Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need."

"If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. And if they don't, they never were."