— The Prophet (Kahlil Gibran, 1923)
About this quote
हिन्दी में
निश्चय ही मनुष्य के लिए उससे बड़ा कोई उपहार नहीं, जो उसके सारे लक्ष्यों को प्यास से सूखे होंठ बना दे और सारे जीवन को एक झरना।
What it means
The gift is never named. The sentence defines it only by what it does, and what it does is change two things at once: the person, who becomes thirsty, and the world, which becomes a fountain. Either alone would be a torment — thirst without water, or water without thirst. The line insists on the pair, which is why it is a statement about fit rather than about wanting more.
It is commonly read as praise of ambition, and that reading misses the direction of the change. Note what happens to the plural: all his aims, many and listed and separate, collapse into a single sensation on the lips. The gift simplifies desire rather than multiplying it, and thirst here is a capacity to receive, not a hunger to acquire. What is being called the greatest gift is being able to be filled.
What it teaches you
When you have got the things you asked for and none of them land, read the flatness as missing thirst rather than insufficient supply — and stop lengthening the list, since adding aims is the one move that cannot fix an inability to be filled. Sit instead with what you still want but cannot yet put a name to; that unnamed wanting is the part the sentence treats as the gift.
अर्थ और सीख
यह उपहार अनाम रहता है — वाक्य उसे केवल उसके असर से पहचानता है, और असर दोहरा है: व्यक्ति प्यासा हो जाता है और दुनिया झरना बन जाती है। अकेले कोई भी यातना होता: पानी के बिना प्यास, या प्यास के बिना पानी। ध्यान दें कि “सारे लक्ष्य” सिमटकर एक ही प्यास बन जाते हैं, यानी यह महत्वाकांक्षा बढ़ाने की बात नहीं, भर पाने की क्षमता की बात है — इसलिए जब सब कुछ मिलने पर भी कुछ छूता न हो, सूची लंबी करने की जगह अपनी अनाम प्यास पर ध्यान दें।
Where it comes from
The gift described is not satisfaction but thirst. To have your aims turned into “parching lips” is to want more sharply than before; to have life turned into “a fountain” is to find the world suddenly able to answer that wanting. Gibran calls this the greatest gift because a person who desires nothing cannot be quenched by anything — appetite is the precondition of abundance, not its enemy.
From The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran, 1923. The opening “Surely” and the superlative framing give the sentence the cadence of a proverb, and “parching” is used in its older active sense of causing dryness.
