The Prophet
by Kahlil Gibran
Originally published in 1923, The Prophet is a beautiful treatise on life. In the story, a beloved prophet is about to depart the village where he has been for many years to sail back to his longed-for home. He wishes to offer gifts but possesses nothing. As the people from the town gather, they begin to ask him questions and his wisdom becomes the gift. He shares his philosophy on love, friendship, marriage, joy, sorrow, time and so much more.
As Almustafa was considering his departure, he asked:
A seeker of silences am I, and what treasure have I found in silences that I may dispense with confidence?
Gibran’s words are profound and divine, revealing him to be the true prophet! His thoughts on love are probably the most quoted for wedding vows. This particular edition also has twelve full-page drawings by Gibran. When you need a dose of poetic inspiration, go to any page in The Prophet and your soul will be nurtured.
FAVORITE INSIGHTS
“A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether. And alone and without his nest shall the eagle fly across the sun.” (pp. 4-5)
“In your aloneness you have watched with our days, and in your wakefulness you have listened to the weeping and the laughter of our sleep. Now therefore disclose us to ourselves, and tell us all that has been shown you or that which is between birth and death.” (p. 10)
On Love:
“Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” (p. 8)
“When love beckons you, follow him, Thought his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yield to him, Through the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.” (p. 11)
“Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.” (p.13)
On Marriage:
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.” (p. 15)
“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.” (p. 15)
“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.” (p. 16)
On Children:
“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And thought they are with you yet they belong not to you.” (p. 17)
“You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.” (p. 17)
On Giving:
“You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.” (p. 19)
“There are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.” (p. 20)
On Eating and Drinking:
“Since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother’s milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship.” (p. 23)
On Work:
“When you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born.” (p. 25)
“When you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.” (p. 26)
“He alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.” (p. 28)
“Work is love made visible.” (p. 28)
On Joy and Sorrow:
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.” (p. 29)
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” (p. 29)
“Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.” (p. 30)
On Houses:
“Your house is your larger body.” (p. 31)
“You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.” (p. 33)
On Clothes:
“Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful. And though you seek in garments the freedom of privacy you may find in them a harness and a chain.” (p. 35)
“Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.” (p. 35)
“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.” (p. 36)
On Buying and Selling:
“It is in exchanging the gifts of the earth that you shall find abundance and be satisfied. Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.” (p. 37)
On Crime and Punishment:
“You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked; For they stand together before the face of the sun even as the black thread and the white are woven together.” (p. 41)
“…the erect and the fallen are but one man standing in twilight between the night of his pigmy-self and the day of his god-self, And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.” (p. 43)
On Laws:
“You delight in laying down laws, Yet you delight more in breaking them.” (p. 44)
“You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing?” (p. 46)
On Freedom:
“You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.” (pp. 47-48)
“In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes.” (p. 48)
On Reason and Passion:
“Your reason and your passion are they rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.” (p. 50)
On Pain:
“Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” (p. 52)
“Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.” (p. 52)
On Self-Knowledge:
“Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.” (p.54)
“The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.” (p. 55)
On Teaching:
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.” (p. 56)
“For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.” (p. 57)
On Friendship:
“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.” (p. 59)
“And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.” (p. 59)
“And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.” (p. 59)
On Talking:
“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.” (p. 60)
“When you meet your friend on the roadside or in the market place, let the spirit in you move your lips and direct your tongue.” (p. 61)
On Time:
“The timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness, And knows that yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.” (p. 62)
On Good and Evil:
“You are good when you are one with yourself. Yet when you are not one with yourself you are not evil. For a divided house is not a den of thieves; it is only a divided house.” (p. 64)
“You are good when you strive to give of yourself. Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself.” (pp. 64-65)
“You are good when you are fully awake in your speech, Yet you are not evil when you sleep while your tongue staggers without purpose.” (p. 65)
“You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps. Yet you are not evil when you go thither limping.” (p. 65)
“You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good.” (p. 66)
“In your longing for your giant self lies your goodness: and that longing is in all of you.” (p.66)
On Prayer:
“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.” (p. 67)
On Pleasure:
“Pleasure is a freedom-song.” (p. 70)
“Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.” (p. 72)
“Be in your pleasures like the flowers and the bees.” (p. 73)
On Beauty:
“Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.” (p. 75)
“Beauty is life when life unveils her holy face. But you are life and you are the veil. Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.” (p. 76)
On Religion:
“Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupation?” (p. 77)
“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.” (p. 78)
“Look into space; you shall see Him walking in the cloud, outstretching His arms in the lightening and descending in rain. You shall see Him smiling in flowers, then rising and waving HIs hands in trees.” (p. 79)
On Death:
“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered.” (p. 81)
“When the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” (p. 81)
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