A prophet is the one who, when everyone else despairs, hopes. And when everyone else hopes, he despairs. You’ll ask me why. It’s because he has mastered the Great Secret: that the Wheel turns.

One of my favorite sayings comes from Seng-Ts’an. He said, "Our way is not difficult, save the picking and choosing." Entire books and weeklong courses could be developed around these words. The wisdom is simple, but extremely powerful and profound, particularly when dealing with loss. Although it’s so much easier said than done, when we take a step back and a full breath, we can see loss from what I believe is the deepest perspective.

Prophet just means intellectual. They were people giving geopolitical analysis, moral lessons, that sort of thing. We call them intellectuals today. There were the people we honor as prophets, there were the people we condemn as false prophets. But if you look at the biblical record, at the time, it was the other way around. The flatterers of the Court of King Ahab were the ones who were honored. The ones we call prophets were driven into the desert and imprisoned.

A prophet's true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.

The middle path is the way to wisdom

Taking the easy way out or telling the truth — those are not merely two different choices. They are different pathways through life. They are utterly different ways of existing.

They speak softly, with kindness. They are quick with humor, and keep an open path. They have been tested with suffering and have responded with wisdom rather than bitterness. They teach by story, images, and songs. And they are respectful to mystery. They continue to remind me that it is best to walk this earthly path with vnektckv, compassion. All I have to do is remember them, and they stand in memory in a kind light.

I'm not a prophet but Fahrenheit 1/15 is being quoted by preachers. Far from being a leader but I'm still being invited by teachers.

While predicting the future is a rare gift, testifying for the truth is a duty for every woman and man of conscience. …A prophet, Romero added, is one who has an “undisturbed conscience.” This is an interesting statement.
Only those who are firmly rooted in conscience as their moral compass may calmly tell the truth about injustice and corruption, no matter the risks.
And risks there are since prophets easily make enemies.

For this reason You have given Your people diverse kings and seers, who are called prophets, of whom the majority instituted cults and laws corresponding to the purpose of their legation in Your name, and thus instructed the uncultivated people. They subsequently accepted these laws, as if You, the King of Kings, had spoken with them face to face, and believed they heard not those men, but rather You in them.

It is one of the gifts of great spiritual teachers to make things simple. It is one of the gifts of their followers to complicate them again. Often we need to scrape away the accumulated complications of a master’s message in order to hear the kernel of what they said. (24)

Those who remove our troubles, dispel our doubts, and bestow peace are true teachers. They perform a Godlike work. Their opposites (those who increase our doubts and difficulties) are harmful to us and should be avoided like poison.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

If I have eschewed the word prophet, I do not wish to attribute to myself such lofty title at the present time, for whoever is called a prophet now was once called a seer; since a prophet, my son, is properly speaking one who sees distant things through a natural knowledge of all creatures. And it can happen that the prophet bringing about the perfect light of prophecy may make manifest things both human and divine, because this cannot be done otherwise, given that the effects of predicting the future extend far off into time.