"The obvious is that which is never seen until someone expresses it simply"
About this Quote
Obviousness is a social achievement, not a natural state. Gibran’s line punctures the smug idea that truth is self-evident and suggests something more unsettling: we routinely live inside realities we can’t properly perceive until language cuts a clean outline around them. The “obvious” isn’t waiting on the surface like a road sign; it’s submerged in habit, politeness, and mental noise. Then someone says it plainly, and what felt like air becomes architecture.
The intent is quietly democratic. Gibran isn’t praising rare genius so much as the power of clarity: the person who can name the thing everyone senses but nobody dares to articulate. That “simply” is the hinge. Simple expression isn’t simplification; it’s compression, the art of removing the decorative excuses that let people look away. Subtext: our blindness is often convenient. Many “obvious” truths stay unseen because they would force action, conflict, or vulnerability once spoken.
Context matters. Writing in the early 20th century, a Lebanese-American poet straddling cultures, Gibran made a career out of turning spiritual and emotional complexity into aphorisms that travel. This sentence belongs to that project: a bridge between mysticism and modern psychology, between prophetic tone and practical insight. It also explains his own popularity. His work succeeds not by inventing new feelings, but by giving old, private recognitions a shared, memorable form. The line flatters the reader just enough - you knew it all along - while indicting the collective: if it was so obvious, why did we need permission to see it?
The intent is quietly democratic. Gibran isn’t praising rare genius so much as the power of clarity: the person who can name the thing everyone senses but nobody dares to articulate. That “simply” is the hinge. Simple expression isn’t simplification; it’s compression, the art of removing the decorative excuses that let people look away. Subtext: our blindness is often convenient. Many “obvious” truths stay unseen because they would force action, conflict, or vulnerability once spoken.
Context matters. Writing in the early 20th century, a Lebanese-American poet straddling cultures, Gibran made a career out of turning spiritual and emotional complexity into aphorisms that travel. This sentence belongs to that project: a bridge between mysticism and modern psychology, between prophetic tone and practical insight. It also explains his own popularity. His work succeeds not by inventing new feelings, but by giving old, private recognitions a shared, memorable form. The line flatters the reader just enough - you knew it all along - while indicting the collective: if it was so obvious, why did we need permission to see it?
Quote Details
| Topic | Wisdom |
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