The Prophet - Khalil Gibran

Gibran is one of the most quoted writers of our time. The Prophet is an omnibus of 26 poetic prose. The Prophet, Al Mustafa, who has lived in the foreign city of Orphalese, is about to board a ship that will take him to his homeland. The people of the city entreats him to speak his truth and teach the mysteries of life. Thus this discourse on varied subjects like love, work, marriage, friendship.........This book is one among the few ''to be chewed and digested''. Here are some chewys:-


On Love
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself
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 or love,
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.


On Marriage
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Give your hearts ,but not into each other's keeping.
And stand together yet not too near together


On Children
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.


On Giving
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.


For in truth it is life that gives unto life-while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.


On Work
Work is love made visible.


On Joy and Sorrow
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.


On Houses
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendor, your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.


On Clothes
Forget not that modesty is for a shield against the eye of the unclean.
And when the unclean shall be no more, what were modesty but a fetter and a fouling of the mind?


On Crime and Punishment
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.


You are the way and the wayfarers.


On Pain
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.


Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is bitter poison by which the physician within you heals your sick self.


On Teaching
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.


On Friendship
Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.


And let your best be for your friend.


On Speaking
You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts;
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.
For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.


On Good and Evil
You are good in countless ways, and you are not evil when you are not good,
You are only loitering and sluggard.
Pity that the stags cannot teach swiftness to the turtles.


On Prayer
For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?
And if it is your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is also for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.


On Pleasure
Even your body knows its heritage and its rightful need and will not be deceived.
And your body is the harp of your soul,
And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.


On Religion
Your daily life is your temple and your religion.
Whenever you enter into it take with you your all.


On Death
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.


Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honor.


And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.