The Prophet (Deluxe Hardbound Edition)

by Kahlil Gibran

When love beckons to you, follow him,

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s peace and love’s pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing-floor,

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

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

Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights, is worthy of all else from you.

For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.

But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.” But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master?

You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.

Verily the ocean laughs always with the innocent.

But you who walk facing the sun, what images drawn on the earth can hold you?

And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house. Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both

Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.”

Your friend is your needs answered.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”

When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain. And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; And when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a pastime.

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

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

Yet you are not evil when you seek gain for yourself. For when you strive for gain you are but a root that clings to the earth and sucks at her breast. Surely the fruit cannot say to the root, “Be like me, ripe and full and ever giving of your abundance.” For to the fruit giving is a need, as receiving is a need to the root.

Pleasure is a freedom-song, But it is not freedom. It is the blossoming of your desires, But it is not their fruit. It is a depth calling unto a height, But it is not the deep nor the high. It is the caged taking wing, But it is not space encompassed.

But regret is the beclouding of the mind and not its chastisement.

They should remember their pleasures with gratitude, as they would the harvest of a summer.

And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,

Who can separate his faith from his actions, or his belief from his occupations?

He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked.

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.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?

We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel.

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.

To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of ocean by the frailty of its foam.

man i love the ocean...

And though heavy-grounded ships await the tide upon your shores, yet, even like an ocean, you cannot hasten your tides.

Wise men have come to you to give you of their wisdom. I came to take of your wisdom: And behold I have found that which is greater than wisdom.

Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain.

And some of you have called me aloof, and drunk with my own aloneness, And you have said, “He holds council with the trees of the forest, but not with men. He sits alone on hill-tops and looks down upon our city.” True it is that I have climbed the hills and walked in remote places. How could I have seen you save from a great height or a great distance? How can one be indeed near unless he be far?

nostalgia bait /pos