The Prophet ; ebook

YOUR reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid–seas.

But 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. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and

WORK is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

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

And your body is the harp of your soul, And it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

YOU may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts.

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

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