The Books Of My Childhood

Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet is one of
the three books I grew up with. The other two were Autobiography Of A Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda, and A Child's Garden Of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. Actually, there were probably a dozen books on the bookshelf of my mother's home but these are the three I remember besides the Holy Bible and I read them over and over. I still have the original Child's Garden of Verses and Autobiography of a Yogi but I don't know what ever happened to The Prophet. I did find a lovely copy of it that was published in 1970 and this is a picture from it's cover.

A quote from inside:

Then said a teacher, Speak to us of Teaching. And he said:

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter in the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.

And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.

And even as each on e of you stands alone in God's knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.