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.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.
“On Children” by Kahlil Gibran.
Kahlil Gibran’s literature has a blend of mysticism, sharp clarity, and a touch of rebellion. Born in Ottoman Lebanon in 1883, he moved to the United States as a young immigrant and shaped a voice that refused to be boxed into any single culture. His most famous work, The Prophet, reads like distilled wisdom for people who don’t have the patience for philosophers who drone on. He wrote and painted with the same intent: cut to the human core and leave no room for excuses. His ideas about love, freedom, and sorrow continue to circulate. He left a legacy that straddles East and West without pandering to either.