“There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.”
Work
From the premier interpreter of Rumi comes the first definitive one-volume collection of the enduringly popular spiritual poetry by the extraordinary thirteenth-century Sufi mystic.
Quotes
Showing 1-12 of 12
Coleman Barks
Canonical work source
“There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope. The hopers would feel slighted if they knew.”
“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison When the door is so wide open?”
“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.”
“You have forgotten the One who doesn't care about ownership, who doesn't try to turn a profit from every human exchange.”
“Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.”
“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”
“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
“You have read in the text where They love him blends with He loves them. Those joining loves are both qualities of God. Fear is not. What characteristics do God and human beings have in comm...”
“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 cours...”
“The same wind that uproots trees makes the grass shine. The lordly wind loves the weakness and the lowness of grasses. Never brag of being strong. The axe doesn't worry how thick the branche...”
“Knowledge that is acquired is not like this. Those who have it worry if audiences like it or not. It's a bait for popularity. Disputational knowing wants customers. It has no soul... The onl...”
“…the work of the (Muslim Sufi) dervish community was to open the heart, explore the mystery of union, to fiercely search for and try to say the truth, and to celebrate the glory and difficul...”