Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī Quotes

“You need more help than you know.”

“Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon; How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.”

“There is a basket of fresh bread on your head, yet you go door to door asking for crusts.”

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison When the door is so wide open?”

“There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can’t hope.”

“The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore.”

“Respond to every call that excites your spirit.”

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

“Without the frown of clouds and lightning, the vines would be burned by the smiling sun.”

Unchain yourself, my son, escape its hold! How long will you remain a slave of gold?

“Whoever’s calm and sensible is insane!”

“Fish don’t hold the sacred liquid in cups! They swim the huge fluid freedom.”

“I am so small I can barely be seen. How can this great love be inside me? Look at your eyes. They are small, but they see enormous things.”

“When there are miles to go before we sleep, altered traits are more important than altered states.”

“I will be waiting here.... For your silence to break, For your soul to shake, For your love to wake!”

“You’re water. We’re the millstone. You’re wind. We’re dust blown up into shapes. You’re spirit. We’re the opening and closing of our hands. You’re the clarity. We’re the language that tries to say it. You’re joy. We’re all the different kinds of laughing.”

“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.”

“My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”

“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”

“With what work at you occupied, and for what purpose are you purchased?”

“You attain to knowledge by argument; You attain a craft or skill by practice;”

“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.”

“Wash yourself of yourself.”

“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.”

“Soul, if you want to learn secrets,
 your heart must forget about shame
 and dignity. You are God’s lover,
 yet you worry what people are saying.”