Begins to get the attention of expatriate Arab intellectuals.

 

1908
Publishes a second book of short stories, Spirits Rebellious. Goes to Paris to study art through the generosity of Mary Haskell; is influenced by the Symbolist movement.

 

1910
Returns to Boston. Publishes a book of prose poems, Beyond the Imagination, in Cairo.

 

1911
Rents a small studio apartment in New York. Begins his manuscript for The Madman in English. Meets and draws Yeats.

 

1912
Settles in New York City. His novel, Broken Wings, dedicated to Mary Haskell, is published in New York in Arabic. Meets and draws Abdu'l-Baha, then leader of the Baha'i faith.

 

1913
Meets and draws Carl Jung.

 

1914
A Tear and a Smile, a collection of prose poems, is published in Arabic in New York. Exhibit of Gibran's paintings takes place at Montross Gallery in New York.

 

1916
Publishes several prose poems in English in the new literary journal, "Seven Arts."

 

1917
Exhibit of his work by M. Knoedler & Co., New York.

 

1918
Turning point in Gibran's literary career comes with the publication of The Madman in English. He becomes more outspoken in his political views: on the makeup of the emerging countries Lebanon, Palestine and Syria, Gibran calls on politicians to adopt the positive aspects of the Western culture--even as he was introducing Western culture to the mysticism of the East.

 

1920
Founding of the Arab literary group "Pen League" in New York. Gibran publishes The Forerunner, a collection of parables and sayings, his second book in English.

 

1923
Publishes his magnum opus, The Prophet, in New York to instant success and fame; the title has never been out of print since. Mary Haskell moves to Georgia and marries.

 

1926
Publishes Sand and Foam in New York. Gibran begins to contribute articles to the quarterly journal "The New Orient," which took an international approach encouraging the East and West to meet.

 

1928
Publication of Jesus, Son of Man, which presents portraits of Jesus through the eyes of His contemporaries.

 

1931
The Earth Gods, a long prose poem, is published in March. Gibran dies on April 10th at a New York hospital. His body is sent back to Lebanon, where his coffin is carried in a long celebratory procession from Beirut to Besharri. The Mar Sarkis monastery in Besharri was purchased according to Gibran's wishes and he was eventually moved to his final resting-place there. His belongings, the books he read, and some of his works and illustrations were later shipped to provide a local collection in the monastery, which turned into the Gibran Museum.

 

SELECTED QUOTES

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

 

Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

 

A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world.

 

Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth.

 

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

 

Love that is washed by tears will remain eternally pure and faithful.

 

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

 

Some of our children are our justifications and some are but our regrets.

 

An eye for an eye, and the whole world would be blind.

 

Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? Love and doubt have never been on speaking terms.

 

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."

 

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

 

Death most resembles a prophet who is without honor in his own land or a poet who is a stranger among his people.

 

Art arises when the secret vision of the artist and the manifestation of nature agree to find new shapes.

 

The eye of a human being is a microscope, which makes the world seem bigger than it really is.

 

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.

 

But 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.

 

As a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.

 

Do not limp before the lame, deeming it a kindness.

 

One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.

 

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

 

Cast aside those who liken godliness to whimsy and who try to combine their greed for wealth with their desire for a happy afterlife.

 

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.

 

All that spirits desire, spirits attain.