Rumi

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”

“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”

“When I am with you, we stay up all night. When you're not here, I can't go to sleep. Praise God for those two insomnias! And the difference between them.”

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

“I choose to love you in silence… For in silence I find no rejection, I choose to love you in loneliness… For in loneliness no one owns you but me, I choose to adore you from a distance… For distance will shield me from pain, I choose to kiss you in the wind… For the wind is gentler than my lips, I c...”

“Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.”

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”

“This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.”

“You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don't. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.”

“silence is the language of god, all else is poor translation.”

“Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others' faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.”

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.”

“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”

“Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.”

“Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the earth.”

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.”

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.”

“May these vows and this marriage be blessed.”

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

“Beyond Islam and unbelief there is a desert plain. For us, there is a passion in the midst of that expanse. The knower who reaches there will prostrate, there is neither Islam nor unbelief, nor any 'where' in that place.”

“This silence, this moment, every moment, if it’s genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There’s nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, ‘Be more silent.’ Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest...”

“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”

“However much I might try to expound or explain Love, when I come to Love itself, I am ashamed of my explanations... Love alone can explain the mysteries of love and lovers.”

“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”

“Oh, bird of my soul, fly away now, For I possess a hundred fortified towers.”

“You've come to know the fortunate and the inauspicious stars, but you don't know whether you yourself are fortunate or lucky.”

“There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again.”

“It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home.”

“Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”

“Water, stories, the body, all the things we do, are mediums that hid and show what's hidden.”

“There is an invisible strength within us; when it recognizes two opposing objects of desire, it grows stronger.”

“The gifts of lovers to one another are, in respect to love, nothing but forms; yet, they testify to invisible love.”

“What shall I say, O Muslims, I know not myself, I am neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor a Zoroastrian, nor a Muslim.”

“That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquillity.”

“Love will find its way through all languages on its own.”

“Listen! Clam up your mouth and be silent like an oyster shell, for that tongue of yours is the enemy of the soul, my friend. When the lips are silent, the heart has a hundred tongues.”

“The moment I first heard love I gave up my soul, my heart, and my eyes.”

“May this marriage be full of laughter, our every day in paradise.”

“This is the essence of all sciences - that you should know who you will be when the Day of Reckoning arrives.”

“When I die, I shall soar with angels, and when I die to the angels, what I shall become you cannot imagine.”

“Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.”

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”

“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”

“God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites so that you will have two wings to fly, not one”

“Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.”

“You think of yourself as a citizen of the universe. You think you belong to this world of dust and matter. Out of this dust you have created a personal image, and have forgotten about the essence of your true origin”

“When you go through a hard period, When everything seems to oppose you, ... When you feel you cannot even bear one more minute, NEVER GIVE UP! Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!”

“Go back, go back to sleep. Yes, you are allowed. You who have no Love in your heart, you can go back to sleep. The power of Love is exclusive to us, you can go back to sleep. I have been burnt by the fire of Love. You who have no such yearning in your heart, go back to sleep. The path of Love, has s...”

“This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.”

“Anyone who knows me, should learn to know me again; For I am like the Moon, you will see me with new face everyday.”

“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.”

“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

“In your light I learn how to love. In your beauty, how to make poems. You dance inside my chest where no-one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.”

“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”

“A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.”

“This is love: to fly toward a secret sky, to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment. First to let go of life. Finally, to take a step without feet.”

“Is it really so that the one I love is everywhere?”

“Gamble everything for love, if you're a true human being.”

“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”

“We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.”

“I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.”

“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone's soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”

“Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave 'til it gets to shore. You need more help than you know.”

“If it is bread that you seek, you will have bread. If it is the soul you seek, you will find the soul. If you understand this secret, you know you are that which you seek.”

“Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.”

“Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy.”

“How will you know the difficulties of being human, if you are always flying off to blue perfection? Where will you plant your grief seeds? Workers need ground to scrape and hoe, not the sky of unspecified desire.”

“Do not seek water, get thirst.”

“You dance inside my chest, where no one sees you, but sometimes I do, and that sight becomes this art.”