Rumi Poetry Quotes

“Do you know what you are?
You are a manuscript oƒ a divine letter.
You are a mirror reflecting a noble face.
This universe is not outside of you.
Look inside yourself;
everything that you want,
you are already that.”
― Rumi, Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi

“Lovers find secret places
inside this violent world
where they make transactions
with beauty.”
― Rumi

“Unable to perceive the shape of You,
I find You all around me.
Your presence fills my eyes with Your love,
It humbles my heart,
For You are everywhere.”
― Hakim Sanai

“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”
― Rumi, Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi

“Woman is the light of God.”
― Rumi

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

“Somewhere along the way, there develops within the soul a yearning that can no longer be ignored, a craving for the great love affair. We feel it drawing ever closer. It is the greatest of them all. It cannot fail. It is all consuming. It is incomparable. It is the love affair with our own true nature and the source from which it comes. The desire is in all of us but, more often than not, it is ignored for other interests. We wrestle with each interest, trying to make it work, growing with each adventure until the light has grown bright enough for us to reach for it.”
― Donna Goddard, Love's Longing

“Things that can seem malicious or unfortunate are often a blessing in disguise, whereas things that might seem pleasant can be harmful in the long run.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“While the Mystic masters prided themselves on being 'lunatic', this was understood in two distinct senses: one, a lunacy below reason, and another, a lunacy above reason. The second type of lunacy, in the words of Shakespeare, is a 'fine frenzy', whereas the first type is the neurotic or psychotic insanity belonging to the field of abnormal psychology. Thus, where Rumi exclaims:

I am a lover, skilled in the arts of madness;
I am surfeited with culture and learning.”
― Hossein Elahi Ghomshei PhD, Beauty, Love, and Wisdom in Persian Poetry: From Attar to Rumi, Shabistari and Hafiz

“A donkey stuck in mud is logic's fate
Love's nature only love can demonstrate”
― Rumi, The Masnavi of Rumi, Book One: A New English Translation with Explanatory Notes

“Hasan, the Begger:

Believe it or not, they call this purgatory on earth “holy-suffering”. I am a leper stuck in limbo. Neither the dead nor the living want me among them. Mothers point me out on the streets to scare their misbehaving little ones, and children throw stones at me. Artisans chase me from their storefronts to ward off the bad luck that follows me everywhere, and pregnant women turn their faces away whenever they set eyes on me, fearing that their babies will be born defec-tive. None of these people seem to realize that as keen as they are to avoid me, I am far keener to avoid them and their pitiful stares.

Friday is the best day of the week to beg except when it is Ramadan, in which case the whole month is quite lucrative. The last day of Ramadan is by far the best time to make money. That is when even the hopeless penny-pinchers race to give alms, keen to compensate for all their sins, past and present. Once a year, people don't turn away from beggars. To the contrary, they specifically look for one, the more miserable the better. So profound is their need to show off how generous and charitable they are, not only do they race to give us alms, but for that single day they almost love us.

I’ve realized that the trees and I had something in common. A tree shedding its leaves in autumn resembled a man shedding his limbs in the final stages of leprosy. I am naked tree. My skin, my organs, my face are falling apart. Every day another part of my body abandons me. And for me, unlike the trees, there would be no spring in which I would blossom. What I lost, I lost forever. When people looks at me, they don’t see who I am but what I am missing. Whenever they places a coin in my bowl, they do so with amazing speed and avoid any eye contacts, as if my gaze is contagious. In their eyes I am worse than a thief or a murderer. As much as they disapproves of such outlaws, they don’t treat them as if they are invisible. When it comes to me, however, all they see is death staring them in the face. That's what scares them--to recognize that death could be this close and this ugly.”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love

“Didn't I Tell You

Didn’t I tell you
Do not leave me for I am your only Friend,
I am the spring of life.
Even if you leave in anger for thousands of years
You will come back to me for I am your goal and your end.

Didn’t I tell you
not to be seduced by this colorful world
for I am the Ultimate Painter.

Didn’t I tell you
you are a fish do not go to dry land
for I am the deep Sea.

Didn’t I tell you
not to fall in the net like birds
for I am your wings and the power of light.

Didn’t I tell you
not to let them change your mind and turn you to ice
for I am your fire and warmth.

Didn’t I tell you
they will corrupt you and make you forget
that I am the Spring of all virtues.

Didn’t I tell you
not to question my actions
for everything falls into order, I am the Creator.

Didn’t I tell you
your heart can guide you home
because it knows that I am your Master.

***
Translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi
Rumi: Hidden Music
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001
***”
― Rumi

“A donkey stuck in mud is logic's fate
Love's nature only love can demonstrate”
― Jawid Mojaddedi, The Masnavi: Book One

“This being human is a guest house,
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honourably,
He may be clearing you out for some new
delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has sent
as a guide from beyond.”
― Rumi (Jalal ad-Din Muhammad ar-Rumi)

“You were born with wings, why prefer to crwal through life?”
― Mawlana Jalal ad-Din Rumi

“In his mystical epic "The Rhyming Spiritual Couplets" (Mathnawi-yi ma'nawi), Rumi frequently celebrates the Religion of Love. The following verse from his Mathnawi constitutes his most famous statement concerning the pre-eminence of this higher secta amoris:

  Love's state is apart
     From religions and faith
  God is the lover's creed—
     God is the lover's state.”
― Hossein Elahi Ghomshei PhD, Beauty, Love, and Wisdom in Persian Poetry: From Attar to Rumi, Shabistari and Hafiz

“So many prayers request catastrophe,
But God opts not to listen mercifully.”
― Jawid Mojaddedi, The Masnavi, Book Two

“A lover asked his beloved, Do you love yourself more than you love me?

The beloved replied,
I have died to myself and I live for you.

I've disappeared from myself and my attributes.
I am present only for you.

I have forgotten all my learnings,
but from knowing you
I have become a scholar.

I have lost all my strength,
but from your power
I am able.

If I love myself
I love you.
If I love you
I love myself”
― Deepak Chopra

“در دل و جان خانه کردی عاقبت

هر دو را دیوانه کردی عاقبت

من تو را مشغول می‌کردم دلا

یاد آن افسانه کردی عاقبت”
― Rumi, گلچینی از غزلیات شمس تبریزی

“The world's a mountain, actions like a shout, your echo will return to you, watch out!”
― Jawid Mojaddedi, The Masnavi: Book One

“Know it for certain that the lover's not a Muslim
For in the creed of love there's neither infidelity
Or faith; since once you fall in love, you have no body,
No soul, no heart, no mind: who ain't like this, ain't nothin.

_Rumi”
― Hossein Elahi Ghomshei PhD, Beauty, Love, and Wisdom in Persian Poetry: From Attar to Rumi, Shabistari and Hafiz

“The true believers within every religion, as Rumi puts it, are like rays of a single lamp:

   If ten lamps are together in one place
      each one is different from the next in form.
   You cannot tell apart the light of each
      when you are looking at them, there is no doubt.”
― Hossein Elahi Ghomshei PhD, Beauty, Love, and Wisdom in Persian Poetry: From Attar to Rumi, Shabistari and Hafiz

“From a snake-catcher someone stole a snake;
The fool saw as success this huge mistake
From that snake’s bite its owner thus was spared,
It killed the thief who’d now become ensnared.
The owner saw the thief as he lay dead:

I’d prayed to find this wretch eventually
To claim my snake, then take it home with me
Thank heavens, God chose not to answer it:

So many prayers request catastrophe,
But God opts not to listen mercifully.”
― Jawid Mojaddedi, The Masnavi, Book Two

“We are not in pursuit of happiness; we are searching for a reason to be happy. That reason gives meaning to life, and that meaning is our purpose in life.”
― Dr. Farid Mostamand

“We are not in pursuit of happiness; we are searching for a reason to be happy. That reason gives meaning to life, and that meaning is our purpose in life.”
― Farid Mostamand, Open Your Eyes

“Didn’t I tell you

Do not leave me for I am your only Friend,
I am the spring of life.
Even if you leave in anger for thousands of years
You will come back to me for I am your goal and your end.

Didn’t I tell you
not to be seduced by this colorful world
for I am the Ultimate Painter.

Didn’t I tell you
you are a fish do not go to dry land
for I am the deep Sea.

Didn’t I tell you
not to fall in the net like birds
for I am your wings and the power of light.

Didn’t I tell you
not to let them change your mind and turn you to ice
for I am your fire and warmth.

Didn’t I tell you
they will corrupt you and make you forget
that I am the Spring of all virtues.

Didn’t I tell you
not to question my actions
for everything falls into order, I am the Creator.

Didn’t I tell you
your heart can guide you home
because it knows that I am your Master.

— Translation by Azima Melita Kolin and Maryam Mafi
Rumi: Hidden Music
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2001”
― Rumi

“Rheumy eyes replaced recitals of Rumi ghazals.”
― Soroosh Shahrivar, Tajrish

“Brad Pitt’s tattoo of ‘Rumi’ is not a Rumi quotation at all … and may be translated as follows: ‘verby anders glo en Islam, lê ’n sandvlak. Daar heers ons verlang in daardie tussenvlak, die mistikus sal biddend sak omdat hy daar anders glo, nog geloof is daar nog ’n baar”
― D.Z. van der Berg, Rumi: Liefdesverse en aanhalings

“rule no 13:
the quest for love changes us. there is no seeker among those who search for love who has not matured on the way. the moment you start looking for love, you start to change within and without”
― Elif Shafak, The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi

“When mystics proudly announce that they 'revel in the delights of desire (havas),' their apparently sybarite sentiment takes as its transcendental reference point the 'grand desire' of the adept to realize freedom from selfhood, as Rumi states:

   There lies in no man's head
      Such desire as lies in mine;
   The desire I sense is such that
      I'm bereft of all ken of self.”
― Hossein Elahi Ghomshei PhD, Beauty, Love, and Wisdom in Persian Poetry: From Attar to Rumi, Shabistari and Hafiz