The Prophet

by Kahlil Gibran

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm, nor the voice that echoes it.

And even as each one of you stands alone in God’s knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.

Your friend is your needs answered.

For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;

And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

The silence of aloneness reveals to their eyes their naked selves and they would escape.

And there are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.

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.

Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear;

For his soul will keep the truth of your heart as the taste of the wine is remembered. When the colour is forg...

Yet the timeless in you is aware of life’s timelessness,

You are good when you are fully awake in your speech.

You are good when you walk to your goal firmly and with bold steps.

But let not him who longs much say to him who longs little, “Wherefore are you slow and halting?”

For the truly good ask not the naked, “Where is your garment?” nor the houseless, “What has befallen your house?”

For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive.

Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being.

Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.

And your body is the harp of your soul,

Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower. But it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, And to the flower a bee is a messenger of love,

beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.

And he who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his song-bird in a cage.

And he to whom worshipping is a window, to open but also to shut, has not yet visited the house of his soul whose windows are from dawn to dawn.

For in reverie you cannot rise above your achievements nor fall lower than your failures.

In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;

Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?

You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link.

And though heavy-grounded ships await the tide upon your shores, yet, even like an

The veil that clouds your eyes shall be lifted by the hands that wove it, And the clay that fills your ears shall be pierced by those fingers that kneaded it.