Words of Wisdom from The Profit by Kahlil Gibran
Despite being a small book, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, it is packed with thought-provoking ideas and wisdom.
The Prophet consists of a collection of poetic essays, with commentary on just about any facet of life. It is not a “quick read”, as you will find yourself returning to the book again, reading and re-reading passages to more deeply absorb their meaning.
This is one of my all-time favourite books that has a permanent place on my bookshelf. I would recommend this book to everyone, and I’m sure it will quickly become one of your favourites too. Here are the parts that resonated most for me:
1. Love is enough
“Love gives naught but itself and takes not but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; for love is sufficient unto love.”
2. Embrace independence
“Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.”
3. Love without attachment
“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”
4. We are one, but we are independent
“And stand together, 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.”
5. Our children are not possessions and do not “belong” to us. Allow them to be their own person.
“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And 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.”
6. Giving yourself is more powerful than giving material possessions
“But when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.”
7. Look for opportunities to give, even if you’re not asked to
“It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding.”
8. Love connects us to ourselves, others, and God
“And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.”
9. Love life through labour
“Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune. But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born, and in keeping yourself with labour you were in truth loving life, and to love life through labour is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.”
10. Work with love
“Work is love made visible. And if you can 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.”
11. We need sorrow to feel joy
“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.”
12. Find your “why”
“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 standstill in mid-seas.”
13. We all have a deeper “knowing”
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”
14. Friendship deepens our spirit
“And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit. For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.”
15. Find solitude in silence
“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts; and when you can no longer dwell in the solitude of your heart you live in your lips, and sound is a diversion and a past time. And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.”
16. Pray when you don’t need to
“You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.”
17. You are more than beauty
“Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. But you are eternity and you are the mirror.”
18. There is no separation between life and death
“If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life. For life and death one, even as the river and the sea are one.”
19. Don’t measure yourself by your smallest deeds
“You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link. But this is half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link. To measure you buy your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the fragility of its foam.”
