The Prophet

"The butterfly becomes not beautiful on the day it becomes a butterfly; it was always beautiful."

"For even as love crowns you so shall it crucify you."

"Your children come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you."

"Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be amused."

"The selfish smile and the cunning handshake are but the beginning of endless curse."

"I have loved you and you have known it. Seek not to know more of this or test it with words."

"Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair, but manifestations of strength and resolution."

"Your friend is your needs answered."

"And in the waking you shall think again upon this day and wonder at its secret meaning."

"The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain."

"Silence is not emptiness. It is fullness."

"As a single leaf turns not yellow but with silent knowledge of the whole tree, so the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all."

"Do not lose yourself in the thicket of other people's theories."

"The strongest of you must sometimes weep to know that you are human."

"Your body is the temple of your soul. Enter into that temple with reverence."

"And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures."

"Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream."

"The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but leads you to the threshold of your own mind."

"To understand the heart and mind of a person, begin not with their reasoning; begin with their play."

"And this same flower whose seeds are the joy of the bee, is to the spider a nesting place."

"But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure; and seek not the value of your worth by denying it in others."

"The lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul."

"Much of your pain is self-chosen. It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self."

"There are those among you who seek the talkative man because they themselves are afraid of silence."

"All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart."

"For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly."

"Knowledge that leads not to action is a disease."

"Your own soul is nourished when you are kind; but it is destroyed when you are cruel."

"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."

"Forget not that justice is sometimes cruel, yet it is merciful in its cruelty."