Statutes from Kahlil Gibran

I once heard that a truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age. One of my oldest possessions is this book, 'The Prophet' by one of my all-time favorite authors, Kahlil Gibran.I've had this for more than a decade (about 12 years now) and I never tire of reading it over and over and over again. I've managed to even memorize some lines in the process. Allow me to share some of my favorites.


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

ON JOY AND SORROW
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

ON REASON AND PASSION
Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgement wage war against your passion and your appetite. . . . . . .
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.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

ON PAIN
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. . . . . . .
Much of your pain is self-chosen.It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.

ON TALKING
You talk when you cease to ba at peace with your thoughts. . . . . . .
And in much of your talking, thinking is half murdered.

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 not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

ON MARRIAGE
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. . . . . . .
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.

ON LOVE
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep. . . . . . .
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.


Have a smashing day!!!