The Prophet (AmazonClassics Edition)

by Kahlil Gibran

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. 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. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And 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.

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 though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Your house is your larger body.

Your clothes conceal much of your beauty, yet they hide not the unbeautiful.

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil. For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

Man’s needs change, but not his love, nor his desire that his love should satisfy his needs.

Vague and nebulous is the beginning of all things, but not their end,