The Prophet

The Coming of the Ship

On Love

On Marriage

• 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.
• 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.

On Children

• 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 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 tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
• You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you, for life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

On Giving

• There are those who give little of the much which they have (…) And there are those who have little and give it all.
• There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.

On Eating and Drinking

On Work

• You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
• In keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life.
• I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge, and all urge is blind save when there is knowledge, and all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love; and when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
• And what is it to work with love? It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth. It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house. It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

On Joy and Sorrow

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

On Houses

On Clothes

On Buying and Selling

• Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice, it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger.
• Before you lave the market place, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands.

On Crime and Punishment

On Laws

On Freedom

On Reason and Passion

On Pain

• Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
• Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self. Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquillity.

On Self-Knowledge

• Say not, “I have found the truth,” but rather, “I have found a truth.” Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.”

On Teaching

• The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives 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. The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding. The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.

On Friendship

On Talking

• You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts. (…) And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

On Time

On Good and Evil

On Prayer

On Pleasure

• Go to your fields and your gardens, and you shall learn that it is the pleasure of the bee to gather honey of the flower, but it is also the pleasure of the flower to yield its honey to the bee. For to the bee a flower is a fountain of life, and to the flower a bee is a messenger of love, and to both, bee and flower, the giving and the receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.

On Beauty

• The aggrieved and the injured say, “Beauty is kind and gentle. (…)” And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread. (…)” The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit. (…)” But the restless say, “We have heard her shouting among the mountains (…)” At night the watchmen of the city say, “Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east.” And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, “We have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset.” In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills.” And in the summer heat the reapers say, “We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair.” Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied. It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth, but rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted. It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear, but rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.

On Religion

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

On Death

• Life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.

On Farewell

• 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.
• This day has ended. It is closing upon us even as the water-lily upon its own tomorrow. What was given us here we shall keep, and if it suffices not, then again must we come together and together stretch our hands unto the giver.
• Forget not that I shall come back to you. A little while, and my longing shall gather dust and foam for another body. A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another women shall bear me.