The Prophet ; ebook

BUT if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing–floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

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.

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.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

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

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

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

GIVE your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And 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.

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