Kahlil Gibran

The Prophet is a book by the Lebanese-American poet and writer Kahlil Gibran in 1923. 

The book consists of Prophet Almustafa's answers to a crowd on a number of themes relating to life and the human condition. The Prophet has been translated into over one hundred languages and is one of the best-selling books of all time.

Excerpts: 

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 they are not from you.
• 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 just like you.

On Eating and drinking

Would that you could live on the fragrance of the earth, and like an air plant be sustained by the light. But since you must kill to eat, and rob the newly born of its mother's milk to quench your thirst, let it then be an act of worship, And let your board stand an altar on which the pure and the innocent of forest and plain are sacrificed for that which is purer and still more innocent in man. When you kill a beast say to him in your heart, "By the same power that slays you, I too am slain; and I too shall be consumed. For the law that delivered you in to my hand shall deliver me into a mightier hand. Your blood and my blood is naught but the sap that feeds the tree of heaven." And when you crush an apple with your teeth, say to it in your heart, "Your seeds shall live in my body, And the buds of your tomorrow shall blossom in my heart, And your fragrance shall be my breath, And together we shall rejoice through all the seasons."

On Giving

Then said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving. And he answered : You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow'? And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overpruden t dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city'? And what is fear of need but need itself'? Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable'? There are those who give little of the much which they have-and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome. And there are those who have little and give it all. These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty. There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward. And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism. And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue; They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space. Through the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth. It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding; And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than g1vmg. And is there aught you would withhold'? All you have shall some day be given; Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.