Khalil Gibran’s “The Prophet” Quotes (71 Quotes)

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

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

God listens not to your words save when He Himself utters them through your lips.

Yea, I shall return with the tide.

And since you are a breath in God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion.

Nor is it a thought I leave behind me, but a heart made sweet with hunger and with thirst.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, so shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

They see only their shadows, and their shadows are their laws.

Have you beauty, that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?

You are the way and the wayfarers.

And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

Poichè l'amore come v'incorona così vi crocefigge. E come vi fa fiorire così vi reciderà.

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.

Have you remembrances, the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?

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. To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.

And that which sings and contemplates in you is still dwelling within the bounds of that first moment which scattered the stars into space.

So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.

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

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

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.

You have walked among us a spirit, and your shadow has been a light upon our faces.

And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.

The lust for comfort kills the passions of the soul.

For love is sufficient unto love.

What is fear of need but need itself?

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.

If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a 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.

And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.