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

by Kahlil Gibran

It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands. Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.

A voice cannot carry the tongue and the lips that gave it wings. Alone must it seek the ether.

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

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.

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.

And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

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.

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul, and then walks grinning in the funeral.