The Prophet
by Kahlil Gibran
Twenty-six prose poems delivered by a prophet leaving a city: on love, marriage, children, giving, work, joy and sorrow, freedom, pain, friendship, death. Published in 1923, read at weddings and funerals for a century. It is lyrical and aphoristic, and its lines on children not being yours and work as love made visible remain the best-known in the genre.
Read it if…
you want timeless poetic wisdom to return to at life's thresholds.
Skip it if…
you want practical advice; it is poetry.
Three things you will actually use
- Work is love made visible.
- Your children are not your children.
- Joy and sorrow are inseparable; the deeper one carves, the more the other can hold.
Do this first
Read 'On Work' before your next workday and 'On Children' if you are a parent.
Our verdict
Lyrical and enduring.
Compare with other Character books
Tao Te Ching
Lao Tzu, translated by Stephen Mitchell · Character
Ancient, brief and endlessly rereadable.
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