The Prophet

by Kahlil Gibran

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

When love beckons to you, follow him,

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love.

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them to-morrow?

But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

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.

And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

That which seems most feeble and bewildered in you is the strongest and most determined. Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones? And is it not a dream which none of you remember having dreamt, that built your city and fashioned all there is in it?