The Prophet (Macmillan Collector's Library) by Kahlil Gibran (2016-07-14)

by Kahlil Gibran

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of to-morrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons,

when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another,

Work is love made visible.

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

for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

Your friend is your needs answered.

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

yesterday is but to-day’s memory and to-morrow is to-day’s dream.

beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

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.

Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?

You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam.

To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.