Kahlil Gibran is an accomplished artist, a writer, and most of all, the third best selling poet of all time, falling behind Shakespeare and Laozi.

Though Gibran has written 19 books and 16 poem collections, his book The Prophet is the most famous of all.

It has been translated into more than 40 languages and never run out of print even unto this day.

The following quotes are some of the most inspiring from his work. They speak directly to your soul.

There’s something unexplainably powerful when you read quotes like these. They penetrate through all the layers of our ego and ignite what we really stand for.

The 15 Most Inspiring Kahlil Gibran Quotes:

1. Speak your mind out to calm your inner argue.

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.”

2. The one destined to love you will never leave your side.

“If you love somebody, let them go, for if they return, they were always yours. If they don’t, they never were.”

3. Do not lose your individuality when you love someone.

“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”

4. Suffering brings out the best in your character.

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

5. You weep for the ones that you care about.

“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.”

6. True beauty lies within the heart.

“Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.”

7. You don’t need to be always understood.

“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.”

8. Connecting with nature brings you delight.

“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair”

9. It’s only when you’re tender and kind that you’re truly strong.

“Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution.”

10. We need one another.

“No human relation gives one possession in another, every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.”

11. Only little minds belittle others.

“To belittle, you have to be little.”

12. Your life is defined by your attitude towards it.

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”

13. The beauty we see outside is actually inside us.

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.”

14. Your days are worth more than gold.

“They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.”

15. You can only find real joy when you serve others.

“I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and I saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.”