The Prophet

Kahlil Gibran’s book of prose poems in which the prophet Almustafa, about to sail home after twelve years in the city of Orphalese, answers the people’s questions on love, marriage, children, work, freedom, death and other matters of life.

Start reading28 sections, about 12,000 words

Famous quotes

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

  In context

  • Love

• When love beckons to you, follow him,
  Though his ways are hard and steep.
  And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
  Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
  And when he speaks to you believe in him,
  Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

  On LoveIn context

  • Love

• For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

  On LoveIn context

  • Love

• All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

  On LoveIn context

  • Love

• 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.

  In context

  • Love

• When you love you should not say, “God is in my heart,” but rather, “I am in the heart of God.”
  And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

  On LoveIn context

  • God
  • Love

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

  On ChildrenIn context

  • Children
  • Family

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

  On GivingIn context

  • Charity

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

  On GivingIn context

  • Charity

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

  On Joy and SorrowIn context

  • Emotion
  • Happiness

• You shall be free indeed when your days are not without care nor your nights without a want and a grief,
  But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

  In context

• For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

  On Reason and PassionIn context

  • Emotion
  • Thinking

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

  On PainIn context

  • Knowledge

• Say not, “I have found the path of the soul.” Say rather, “I have met the soul walking upon my path.” For the soul walks upon all paths.

  In context

  • Wisdom

• The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

  On Self-KnowledgeIn context

  • Philosophy

• Your friend is your needs answered.
  He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
  And he is your board and your fireside.
  For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

  On FriendshipIn context

  • Friendship

• Yesterday is but today’s memory and tomorrow is today’s dream.

  On TimeIn context

  • Time

• And is not time even as love is, undivided and paceless?
  But if in your thought you must measure time into seasons, let each season encircle all the other seasons,
  And let today embrace the past with remembrance and the future with longing.

  On TimeIn context

  • Love
  • Time

Contents

1. The Coming of the Ship
2. On Love
3. On Marriage
4. On Children
5. On Giving
6. On Eating and Drinking
7. On Work
8. On Joy and Sorrow
9. On Houses
10. On Clothes
11. On Buying and Selling
12. On Crime and Punishment
13. On Laws
14. On Freedom
15. On Reason and Passion
16. On Pain
17. On Self-Knowledge
18. On Teaching
19. On Friendship
20. On Talking
21. On Time
22. On Good and Evil
23. On Prayer
24. On Pleasure
25. On Beauty
26. On Religion
27. On Death
28. The Farewell