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.
Kahlil Gibran · The Prophet
Comfort & remembrance
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from…”
- Author
- Kahlil Gibran
- Work
- The Prophet
- Year
- 1923
- Chapter / part
- On Joy and Sorrow
- Length
- 41 words
- Source
- Project Gutenberg eBook #58585
Public domain. This passage is in the public domain. Kahlil Gibran died in 1931, more than 70 years ago, and the work was first published in 1923. You can copy, print, read aloud or sell it without asking permission; a credit is kind but not required. The text is copied word for word from the Project Gutenberg edition linked here.
Related passages
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered? Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.
At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,As I foretold you, were all spirits andAre melted into air, into thin air:And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,The solemn temples, the great globe itself,Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little lifeIs rounded with a sleep.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.
Remember me when I am gone away,Gone far away into the silent land;When you can no more hold me by the hand,Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.Remember me when no more day by dayYou tell me of our future that you plann’d:Only remember me; you understandIt will be late to counsel then or pray.Yet if you should forget me for a whileAnd afterwards remember, do not grieve:For if the darkness and corruption leaveA vestige of the thoughts that once I had,Better by far you should forget and smileThan that you should remember and be sad.
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