Last Updated: February 21, 2023 by Quote.cc Team
Rumi was a Persian poet (born in Afghanistan), jurist, Islamic dervish, and a Sufi mystic. His discipline and wisdom have crossed all national and ethnic borders ever since the 13th century. He is regarded as one of the most popular and accomplished poets of all time, and he has been a bestselling poet in the United States of America. Rumi Quotes & Poems on Life, Love and Death are well known for being wise, thought-provoking, and profound. His work influenced and inspired many other artists, and his wise words kept many others sane up to this day.
I’m pretty sure each one of you has heard or read some Rumi Quotes & Poems at some point. In his honour, below is our collection of inspirational, wise, and powerful Rumi Quotes & Poems to inspire deeper connections and give a more positive outlook on life, collected from various sources over the years.
300 Best Rumi Quotes And Poems Of All Time
Top 10 Rumi Quotes
“Through Love all that is bitter will be sweet, through Love all that is copper will be gold, through Love all dregs will become wine, through Love all pain will turn to medicine.” – Rumi
“Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.” – Rumi
“Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends.” – Rumi
“the cypress tree is turning green, drunk with the forest.” – Rumi
“Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.” – Rumi
“Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river. When the ocean is searching for you, don’t walk into the river. Listen to the ocean.” – Rumi
“Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.” – Rumi
“I have seen the king with a face of Glory, He who is the eye and the sun of heaven, He who is the companion and healer of all beings, He who is the soul and the universe that births souls.” – Rumi
“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” – Rumi
“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.” – Rumi
Rumi Quotes on Love
“Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.”
“The garden of love is green without limit and yields many fruits other than sorrow or joy. Love is beyond either condition: without spring, without autumn, it is always fresh.”
“Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.”
“There is one way of breathing that is shameful and constricted. Then, there’s another way: a breath of love that takes you all the way to infinity.”
“How can I know anything about the past or the future, when the light of the Beloved shines only Now.”
“Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. If not, leave this gathering.”
“The way the night knows itself with the moon, be that way with me. Or, alternately translated, Union is a raging river running toward the sea. Tonight the moon kisses the stars. O beloved, be like that to me.”
“A house of love with no limits, a presence more beautiful than venus or the moon, a beauty whose image fills the mirror of the heart..”
“I don’t regret how much I love, and I avoid those who repent their passion.”
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”
“If you knew yourself for even one moment, if you could just glimpse your most beautiful face, maybe you wouldn’t slumber so deeply in that house of clay. Why not move into your house of joy and shine into every crevice! For you are the secret Treasure-bearer, and always have been. Didn’t you know?””
“Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.”
“When I am with you, everything is prayer.”
“You will learn by reading, But you will understand with LOVE.”
“At night, I open the window and ask the moon to come and press its face against mine. Breathe into me. Close the language-door and open the love-window. The moon won’t use the door, only the window.”
“This is a subtle truth. Whatever you love you are.”
“I turn all thorn then, but you come back again and make my thorniness fragrant and pink and petaled.”
“Whenever we manage to love without expectations,calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven.”
“Love is an emerald. Its brilliant light wards off dragons On this treacherous path.”
“Tonight the moon kisses the stars.”
“Close your eyes, fall in love, stay there.”
“Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.”
“Sometimes you hear a voice through the door calling you… This turning toward what you deeply love saves you.”
“A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.”
“Love is an open secret, the most obvious thing in the world and the most hidden, with no why to how it keeps its mystery.”
“Come, whoever you are! Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving. This is not a caravan of despair. It doesn’t matter if you’ve broken your vow a thousand times, still and yet again come!”
“Sorrows are the rags of old clothes and jackets that serve to cover, and then are taken off. That undressing, and the beautiful naked body underneath is the sweetness that comes after grief.”
“The heart has its own language. The heart knows a hundred thousand ways to speak.”
“Love is not an emotion, it’s your very existence.”
“The way you make love is the way God will be with you.”
“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.”
“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.”
“You fill yourself with the sharp pain of love, rather than its fulfilment.”
“A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western. Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”
“This is how I would die into the love I have for you: as pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight.”
“Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end.”
“This is what love does and continues to do. It tastes like honey to adults and milk to children.”
“Love is a river. Drink from it.”
“If you want to be more alive, love is the truest health.”
“my heart sinks like a comb into wave after wave of your silky hair.”
“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about events going badly. Let the lover be.”
“And if you are a rose, I am rose-shadow.”
“Love is a madman, working his wild schemes, tearing off his clothes, running through the mountains….”
“Love comes with a knife, not some shy question, and not with fears for its reputation!”
“This love is the rose that blooms forever.”
“Whenever we can manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven.”
“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.”
“Remember. The way you make love is the way God will be with you.”
“When your love contracts in anger, the atmosphere itself feels threatening. But when you’re expansive, no matter what the weather, you’re in an open, windy field with friends.”
“Love is the house of God and you are living in that house.”
“I would love to kiss you. The price of kissing is your life.”
“Love is the bridge between you and everything.”
“Someone who does not run toward the allure of love walks a road where nothing lives. But this dove here senses the love hawk floating above, and waits, and will not be driven or scared to safety.”
“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”
“There is little one can say about love. It has to be lived, and it’s always in motion.”
“When you seek love with all your heart you shall find its echo in the universe.”
“Would you become a pilgrim on the road of love? The first condition is that you make yourself humble as dust and ashes.”
“Come out of the circle of time and into the circle of love.”
“If you want to win hearts, sow the seeds of Love. If you want heaven, stop scattering thorns on the road.”
“You have within you more love than you could ever understand.”
“Whatever happens, just keep smiling and lose yourself in love.”
“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.”
“We are born of love; Love is our mother.”
“Why ever talk of miracles when you are destined to become infinite love.”
“Listen with ears of tolerance! See through the eyes of compassion! Speak with the language of love.”
“A pen went scribbling along. When it tried to write love, it broke.”
“Be certain that in the religion of Love there are no believers and unbelievers. Love embraces all.”
“Love flows down. The ground submits to the sky and suffers what comes. Is the ground worse for giving in like that? Do not put blankets over the drum. Open completely. Let your spirit ear listen to the green dome’s passionate murmur.”
“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 light becomes this art.”
“Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.”
“The heart is cooking a pot of food for you. Be patient until it is cooked.”
Rumi Quotes on Life
“Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins.”
“What does this patch-sewing mean you ask? Eating and drinking. The heavy cloak of the body is always getting torn. You patch it with food and other ego-satisfactions.”
“Why should I be unhappy? Every parcel of my being is in full bloom.”
“Now is the time to unite the soul and the world. Now is the time to see the sunlight dancing as one with the shadows.”
“Take sips of this pure wine being poured. Don’t mind that you’ve been given a dirty cup.”
“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.”
“Your legs will get heavy and tired. Then comes a moment of feeling the wings you’ve grown, lifting.”
“I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks.”
“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”
“In this mob of I’s inside, which one is me? Hear me out. I know I’m wandering, but don’t start putting a lid on this racket. No telling what I’ll do then. Every moment I’m thrown by your story. One moment it’s happy, and I’m singing. One moment it’s sad, and I’m weeping. It turns bitter, and I pull away. But then you spill a little grace, and just like that, I’m all light. It’s not so bad, this arrangement, actually.”
“Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge of driftwood along the beach, wanting! They derive from a slow and powerful root that we can’t see. Stop the words now. Open the window in the center of your chest, and let the spirits fly in and out.”
“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..”
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished.”
“This is how we are with wine and beautiful food… we want and we get drunk with wanting, then the headache and bitterness afterward.”
“Birdsong brings relief to my longing. I am just as ecstatic as they are, but with nothing to say.”
“Put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking.”
“You sit here for days saying, This is strange business. You’re the strange business. You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine. You’re some weird kind of gold that wants to stay melted in the furnace, so you won’t have to become coins.”
“Can you find another market like this? Where, with your one rose, you can buy hundreds of rose gardens.”
“You’ve gotten drunk on so many kinds of wine. Taste this. It won’t make you wild. It’s fire. Give up, if you don’t understand by this time that your living is firewood.”
“Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.”
“The result of my life is no more than three words: I was raw, I became cooked, I was burnt.”
“Work in the invisible world at least as hard as you do in the visible.”
“Let yourself become living poetry.”
“Don’t put blankets over the drum! Open completely. Let your spirit ear listen to the green dome’s passionate murmur.”
“And even if this world burns up hidden harps will still play here.”
“There is a morning inside you waiting to burst open into Light.”
“In each moment the fire rages, it will burn away a hundred veils. And carry you a thousand steps toward your goal.”
“This drunkenness began in some other tavern. When I get back around to that place, I’ll be completely sober.”
“Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.”
“Travel brings power and love back into your life.”
“I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I’ve been knocking from the inside.”
“Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.”
“There is a fountain inside you. Don’t walk around with an empty bucket.”
“Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings. Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.”
“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.”
“There’s a hidden sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness. We are lutes, no more, no less. If the soundbox is stuffed full of anything, no music…. When you’re full of food and drink, Satan sits where your spirit should….”
“I do not know who lives here in my chest, or why the smile comes. I am not myself, more the bare green knob of a rose that lost every leaf and petal to the morning wind.”
“And don’t think the garden loses its ecstasy in winter. It’s quiet, but the roots are down there riotous.”
“Ignorance is God’s prison. Knowing is God’s palace.”
“Even when tied in a thousand knots, the string is still but one.”
“Lightning, your presence from the ground to sky, no one knows what becomes of me when you take me so quickly.”
“Don’t knock on any random door like a beggar. Reach your long hand out to another door, beyond where you go on the street, the street where everyone says, “How are you?” and no one says How aren’t you.”
“Dance in the middle of fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.”
“Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.”
“Where will you plant your grief-seeds? We need ground to scrape and hoe, not the sky of unspecified desire.”
“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
“This world’s existence is one night long. There’s a great lively gathering that night, but some people sleep through it.”
“I am iron resisting the most enormous magnet there is.”
“Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you..”
“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.”
“If you yearn for holy felicity, shed your arrogance and become a seeker of hearts.”
“All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”
“How will you know the difficulties of being human, if you’re always flying off to blue perfection.”
“Come out here where the roses have opened. Let soul and world meet.”
“Don’t hand me another glass of wine. Pour it in my mouth. I’ve lost the way to my mouth..”
“You’ve been walking the ocean’s edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry. You must dive naked under, and deeper under, a thousand times deeper.”
“Why should I be weary when every cell of my body is bursting with life?”
“He is a letter to everyone. You open it. It says, Live.”
“What I most want is to spring out of this personality, then to sit apart from that leaping. I’ve lived too long where I can be reached.”
“Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape.”
“a great God-wrestling does on inside these wanderers.”
“My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”
“You must lance an ulcer to heal it. You must tear down parts of an old building to restore it, and so it is with a sensual life that has no spirit in it.”
“Purify your eyes, and see the pure world. Your life will fill with radiant forms.”
“Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”
“Live life as if everything is rigged in your favor.”
“The mind, this globe of awareness, is a starry universe that when you push off with your foot, a thousand new roads become clear, as you yourself do at dawn, sailing through the light.”
“Isn’t it time to turn your heart into a temple of fire.”
“The core of the seen and unseen universe smiles, but remember smiles come best from those who weep. Lightning, then the rain-laughter.”
“Inside of us, there’s a continual autumn. Our leaves fall and are blown out over the water.”
“All religions, all this singing, one song. The differences are just illusion and vanity. The sun’s light looks a little different on this wall than it does on that wall, and a lot different on this other one, but it’s still one light.”
“Whosoever knoweth the power of the dance, dwelleth in God.”
“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
“rush out in the rain to be soaked with the sky.”
“You are a fountain of the sun’s light. I am a willow shadow on the ground. You make my raggedness silky.”
“Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.”
“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
“If these poems repeat themselves, then so does Spring.”
“If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.”
“When someone criticizes or disagrees with you, a small ant of hatred and antagonism is born in your heart. If you do not squash that ant at once, it might grow into a snake or even a dragon.”
“Something opens our wings, something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us: We taste only sacredness.”
“Is what I say true? Say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe.”
“Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty. You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses.”
“Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who’s there.”
“Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.”
Rumi Quotes on Friendship
“Be with those who help your being.”
“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
“Friend, our closeness is this: anywhere you put your foot, feel me in the firmness under you.”
“My friend, the sufi is the friend of the present moment. To say tomorrow is not our way.”
“Why struggle to open a door between us when the whole wall is an illusion?”
“A generous friend gives life for a friend let’s rise above this animalistic behavior and be kind to one another.”
“Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.”
“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.”
“Never lose hope, my heart, miracles dwell in the invisible. If the whole world turns against you keep your eyes on the Friend.”
“If you are looking for a friend who is faultless, you will be friendless.”
“Stay with friends who support you in these. Talk with them about sacred texts, and how you are doing, and how they are doing, and keep your practices together.”
“If you are seeking, seek us with joy
For we live in the kingdom of joy.
Do not give your heart to anything else
But to the love of those who are clear joy,
Do not stray into the neighbourhood of despair.
For there are hopes: they are real, they exist
Do not go in the direction of darkness
I tell you: suns exist.”
“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 attend them all!
Even if they’re 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.”
“One who does what the Friend wants done will never need a friend. There’s a bankruptcy that’s pure gain. The moon stays bright when it doesn’t avoid the night. A rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorn.”
Rumi Quotes on Nature
“Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.”
“Water the fruit trees and don’t water the thorns.”
“Rise up nimbly and go on your strange journey to the ocean of meanings…. Leave and don’t look away from the sun as you go, in whose light you’re sometimes crescent, sometimes full.”
“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
“Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself.”
“Try another way of looking. Try you looking and the whole universe seeing.”
“Always search for your innermost nature in those you are with, as rose oil imbibes from roses.”
“Into my heart’s night
Along a narrow way
I groped; and lo! the light,
An infinite land of day.”
“You think of yourself
as a citizen of the universe.
You think you belong
to this world of dust and matter.”
“Listen to presences inside poems,
Let them take you where they will.
Follow those private hints,
and never leave the premises.”
“You are the source of the sun.
And I am the willow’s shadow.
Oh, you have struck me on the head,
Wretch that I am, on fire, am I.”
“You consider issues, but not deeply enough.
Your spring is frozen. Faith is flowing.
Don’t try to forge cold iron.
Study David, the ironsmith, and dancer, and musician.
Move into the sun. You’re wrapped in fantasy
and inner mumbling. When spirit enters, a man begins to wander freely,
escaped and overrunning through the garden plants,
spontaneous and soaking in.
Now a miracle story…”
“You came suddenly shook me from my sleep and vanished.
In my heart, you rose like the moon
but as I glanced at you, you disappeared.
Having had a glimpse of Your garden,
I have no more patience to endure my existence….”
“Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,
no light and no land anywhere,
cloud cover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface, yet I’m already under
and living within the ocean.”
“You are sitting here with us,
but you are also out walking in a field at dawn.
You are yourself the animal we hunt
when you come with us on the hunt.
You are in your body
like a plant is solid in the ground,
yet you are wind.
You are the diver’s clothes
lying empty on the beach.
You are the fish.
In the ocean are many bright strands
and many dark strands like veins that are seen
when a wing is lifted up.
Your hidden self is blood in those,
those veins that are lute strings
that make ocean music,
not the sad edge of the surf,
but the sound of no shore.”
“Should everything pass away,
it couldn’t happen without you.
This heart of mines bears Your imprint;
it has nowhere else to turn.
The eye of the intellect is drunk with You,
the wheeling galaxy is humble before You,
the ear of ecstasy is in Your hand;
nothing happens without You.
The soul is bubbling with You,
the heart imbibes from You,
the intellect bellows in rapture;
nothing happens without You.
You, my grape wine and my intoxication,
my rose garden and my springtime,
my sleep and repose;
nothing happens without You.
You are my grandeur and glory,
you are my possessions and prosperity,
you are my purest water;
nothing happens without You” This is the prayer of each:
You are the source of my life.
You separate essence from the mud.
You honor my soul.
You bring rivers from the mountain springs.
You brighten my eyes.
The wine you offer
takes me out of myself
into the self we share.
Doing that is religion”
Rumi Quotes on Beauty
“See the beauty around you. Break out of your boundaries. Reach out to what makes your life more meaningful.”
“You have seen your own strength. You have seen your own beauty. You have seen your golden wings. Why do you worry?”
“The very center of your heart is where life begins – the most beautiful place on earth.”
“The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.”
“Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.”
““The ground’s generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty! Try to be more like the ground.”
““Always remember you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think and twice as beautiful as you’d ever imagined.”
“That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty, He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful.”
“Let the beauty of what you love to be what you do.”
“Oh soul, you worry too much. You have seen your own strength. You have seen your own beauty. You have seen your golden wings. Why do you worry?”
“Lovers find secret places inside this violent world where they make transactions with beauty.”
“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened…. Let the beauty we love be what we do.”
“Everything in the universe is a pitcher brimming with wisdom and beauty.”
“I see my beauty in you.”
“Nothing can help me but that beauty. There was a dawn I remember when my soul heard something from your soul.”
“The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.”
“The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you.”
“On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty. Today is such a day.”
“Every cloud has a silver lining. Look beyond your bubble to see the beauty in the world.”
“See the beauty around you. Break out of your boundaries. Reach out to what makes your life more meaningful.”
“There is a place born of silence
A place where the whispers of the heart arise.
There is a place where voices sing your beauty
A place where every breath
carves your image
in my soul.”
“Nothing can help me but that beauty.
There was a dawn I remember
when my soul heard something from your soul
I drank water from your spring
and felt the current take me.”
Rumi Quotes on Healing
“You can’t mend something that is not broken! To be healed, you need to fall ill.”
“Pain is the conduit to healing. Without pain, there is no improvement & no betterment.”
“Don’t let anything get to your head. Be it happiness, pride or sadness.”
“Don’t forget that, you have the power to make yourself feel good.”
“Do not map your life by how much time has passed by, rather, map it by how much you have felt, and loved.”
“As the day ends, a new one begins in another part of the world. What goes around, will come back to you.”
“Healing begins with you. Irrespective of what the world says, you make your own little world by changing yourself.”
“Planting an apple tree will give you apples, planting a poison ivy plant will give you poison ivy. Likewise, filling your life with good thoughts and happiness, multiplies the positivity and joy in your life.”
“If you desire healing, let yourself fall ill let yourself fall ill.”
“You already have the precious mixture that will make you well. Use it.”
“There is no room for hypocrisy. Why use bitter soup for healing when sweet water is everywhere?”
“You’ve seen my descent, now watch my rising.”
“Fasting is the first principle of medicine.”
“I am pure light, not just a fistful of clay. The shell is not me, I came as the royal pearl within. Look at me not with outward eye but with inward vision of the heart; Follow me there and see how unencumbered we become.”
“Maybe you are searching among the branches, for what only appears in the roots.”
“Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.”
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
Rumi Quotes on Change
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”
“Your way begins at the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to the prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.”
“Life s picture is constantly undergoing change. The spirit beholds a new world every moment.”
“Pale sunlight, pale the wall. Love moves away. The light changes I need more grace than I thought. Whenever they rebuild an old building, they must first of all destroy the old one.”
“To change, a person must face the dragon of his appetites with another dragon, the life-energy of the soul.”
“That hurt we embrace becomes joy. Call it to your arms where it can change.”
Rumi Quotes on Peace
“All your anxiety is because of your desire for harmony. Seek disharmony, then you will gain peace.”
“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.”
“Dance where you can break yourself up to pieces and totally abandon your worldly passions.”
“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”
“There is a community of the spirit. Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street and being the noise. Drink all your passion, and be a disgrace. Close both eyes to see with the other eye.”
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
“Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty.”
Rumi Quotes on Gratitude
“Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.”
“Gratitude is the wine for the soul. Go on. Get drunk.”
“Today, let us swim wildly, joyously in gratitude.”
“Thankfulness brings you to the place where the Beloved lives.”
“We owe thankfulness to God, not sour faces.”
Related: The Best Gratitude Quotes 2021
Rumi Quotes on Silence
“But learn this custom from the flower: silence your tongue.”
“Carry your baggage towards silence , when you seek the signs of the way.”
“Don’t wait any longer. Dive in the ocean, Leave and let the sea be you.”
“Be quiet. Find acquaintances with silence. Go inside, delve into your heart. Take a day off from the clamor.”
“My boat strikes something deep. At first sounds of silence, waves. Nothing has happened; Or perhaps everything has happened. and I am sitting in my new life.”
“A wealth you cannot imagine flows through you. Do not consider what strangers say. Be secluded in your secret heart-house, that bowl of silence.”
“I will be waiting here…. For your silence to break, For your soul to shake, For your love to wake!”
“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.”
“There is a way between voice and presence, where information flows. In disciplined silence it opens; with wandering talk it closes.”
“There is a place where words are born of silence.”
“Oh, bird of my soul, fly away now, For I possess a hundred fortified towers.”
“This is how it always is when I finish a poem. A great silence overcomes me and I wonder why I ever thought to use language.”
“Let Silence speak to you about the secrets of the universe.”
“Ground yourself, strip yourself down, To blind loving Silence”
“All is known in the sacredness of silence.”
“My souls sits in silence, and then asks again, where are you in all of this?”
“Silence is the root of everything. If you spiral into its void a hundred voices will thunder messages you long to hear.”
“Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.”
“Keep silent, because the world of silence is a vast fullness”
“Sing to me in the silence of your heart and I will rise up to hear your triumphant song.”
“Silence gives answers.”
“Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.”
“Silence is the sea, and speech is like the river. The sea is seeking you: don’t seek the river. Don’t turn your head away from the signs offered by the sea.”
“In the silence of love you will find the spark of life”
“In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.”
“In the silence between your heartbeat bides a summons. Do you hear it? Name it if you must, or leave it forever nameless, but why pretend it is not there?”
“Know the true definition of yourself. That is essential. Then, when you know your own definition, flee from it.”
“Let silence take you to the core of life.”
“Keep silence, be mute. If you have not yet become the tongue of god, be an ear!”
“Stop, open up, surrender the beloved blind silence.
Stay there until you see you’re looking at the light with infinite eyes.”
“I am so close, I may look distant.
So completely mixed with you, I may look separate.
So out in the open, I appear hidden.
So silent, because I am constantly talking with you.”
“Last night
I begged the wise one to tell me the secret of the world.
Gently, gently, he whispered,
Be quiet, the secret cannot be spoken, It is wrapped in silence.”
“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 sign that you’ve died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.”
Rumi Quotes on Death
“I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing.”
“This is how I would die into the love I have for you: As pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight.”
“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.”
“At the end of my life, with just one breath left, if you come, I’ll sit up and sing.”
“I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as a plant and rose to animal, I died as an animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?”
“Die happily and look forward to taking up a new and better form. Like the sun, only when you set in the west can you rise in the east.”
“I learned that every mortal will taste death. But only some will taste life.”
“The world is a playground, and death is the night.”
“Last night things flowed between us that cannot now be said or written.
Only as I’m being carried out and down the road, as the folds of my shroud open in the wind, will anyone be able to read, as on the petal-pages of a turning bud, what passed through us last night.”
“Our death is our wedding with eternity.”
“Before death takes away what you are given, give away what there is to give.”
“Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real Sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.”
“Childhood, youth, and maturity,
and now old age.
Every guest agrees to stay
three days, no more.
Master, you told me to
remind you. Time to go.”
“The angel of death arrives,
and I spring joyfully up.
No one knows what comes over me
when I and that messenger speak!”
“When you come back inside my chest no matter how far I’ve wandered off,
I look around and see the way.
At the end of my life, with just one breath left, if you come then, I’ll sit up and sing.”
“I placed one foot on the wide plain
of death, and some grand
immensity sounded on the emptiness.
I have felt nothing ever
like the wild wonder of that moment.
Longing is the core of mystery.
Longing itself brings the cure.
The only rule is, Suffer the pain.
Your desire must be disciplined,
and what you want to happen
in time, sacrificed.”
“Make your last journey
from this strange world
soar for the heights
where there is no more
separation of you and your home
God has created
your wings not to be dormant
as long as you are alive
you must try more and more
to use your wings to show you’re alive”
“On the day I die, when I’m being carried
toward the grave, don’t weep. Don’t say,
He’s gone! He’s gone. Death has nothing to do with going away. The sun sets and
the moon sets, but they’re not gone.
Death is a coming together. The tomb
looks like a prison, but it’s really
release into union. The human seed goes
down in the ground like a bucket into
the well where Joseph is. It grows and
comes up full of some unimagined beauty.
Your mouth closes here, and immediately
opens with a shout of joy there.”
“The day I’ve died, my pall is moving on
But do not think my heart is still on earth!
Don’t weep and pity me: “Oh woe, how awful!”
You fall in devil’s snare – woe, that is awful!
Don’t cry “Woe, parted!” at my burial
For me this is the time of joyful meeting!
Don’t say “Farewell!” when I’m put in the grave
A curtin is it for eternal bliss.
You saw “descending” – now look at the rising!
Is setting dangerous for sun and moon?
To you it looks like setting, but it’s rising;
The coffin seems a jail, yet it means freedom.
Which seed fell in the earth that did not grow there?
Why do you doubt the fate of human seed?
What bucket came not filled from out the cistern?
Why should the Yusaf “Soul” then fear this well?
Close here your mouth and open it on that side.
So that your hymns may sound in Where-no-place!– Annemarie Schimmel “Look! This is Love – Poems of Rumi” Shambhala, 1991
Rumi Quotes on Sadness
“You left and I cried tears of blood. My sorrow grows. Its not just that You left. But when You left my eyes went with You. Now, how will I cry?”
“I wonder from these thousand of “me’s”, which one am I? Listen to my cry, do not drown my voice I am completely filled with the thought of you. Don’t lay broken glass on my path I will crush it into dust. I am nothing, just a mirror in the palm of your hand, reflecting your kindness, your sadness, your anger. If you were a blade of grass or a tiny flower I will pitch my tent in your shadow. Only your presence revives my withered heart. You are the candle that lights the whole world and I am an empty vessel for your light.”
“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.”
“Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon; how much it can fill your room depends on its windows.”
“Sadness to me is the happiest time, When a shining city rises from the ruins of my drunken mind. Those times when I’m silent and still as the earth, The thunder of my roar is heard across the universe.”
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
“You left ground and sky weeping, mind and soul full of grief. No one can take your place in existence, or in absence. Both mourn, the angels, the prophets, and this sadness I feel has taken from me the taste of language, so that I cannot say the flavor of my being apart.”
“Your heart is the size of an ocean. Go find yourself in its hidden depths.”
“Anyone who knows me, should learn to know me again; For I am like the Moon, you will see me with new face everyday.”
“Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you.”
“But listen to me. For one moment quit being sad. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you.”
“Its good to leave each day behind, like flowing water, free of sadness. Yesterday is gone and its tale told. Today new seeds are growing.”
“Whenever sorrow comes, be kind to it. For God has placed a pearl in sorrow’s hand.”
“The garden of the world has no limits, except in your mind.”
Rumi Quotes on Happiness
“It may be the satisfaction I need depends on my going away. So that when I’ve gone and come back, I’ll find it at home.”
“There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again.”
“No one knows what makes the soul wake up so happy! Maybe a dawn breeze has blown the veil from the face of God.”
“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”
“Come sit with me! Let us drink the holy wine of happiness.”
“If something makes you happy in this world, you should think of what will happen to you if that thing were taken away.”
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”
“O, happy the soul that saw its own faults.”
Rumi Love Poems
“Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.
Tomorrow, when resurrection comes,
The heart that is not in love will fail the test.After a year of solitude and deprivation
this man returned to the door of the Beloved.
He knocked.
A voice from within asked: ‘Who is there?’
The man said: ‘It is Thou.’
The door was opened for him.”
“The most living moment comes when those
who love each other meet each other’s eyes
and in what flows between them then.To see your face in a crowd of others,
or alone on a frightening street,
I weep for that.Our tears improve the earth.
The time you scolded me, your gratitude,
your laughing,
always your qualities increase the soul.
Seeing you
is a wine that does not muddle or numb.We sit inside the cypress shadow
where amazment and clear thought
twine its growth into it.”
“The moon has become a dancer
at this festival of love.
This dance of light,
This sacred blessing,
This divine love,
beckons us
to a world beyond
only lovers can see
with their eyes of fiery passion.
They are the chosen ones
who have surrendered.
Once they were particles of light
now they are the radiant sun.
They have left behind
the world of deceitful games.
They are the privileged lovers
who create a new world
with their eyes of fiery passion.”
“I want that love that moved the mountains.
I want that love that split the ocean.
I want that love that made the winds tremble.
I want that love that roared like thunder.
I want that love that will raise the dead.
I want that love that lifts us to ecstasy.
I want that love that is the silence of eternity.”
“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.
Die happily and look forward to taking up a new and better form.
Like the sun, only when you set in the west can you rise in the east.
I learned that every mortal will taste death.
But only some will taste life.
Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real Sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts.
What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl The world is a playground, and death is the night.
Our death is our wedding with eternity.”
“My love, you are closer to me than myself…
You shine through my eyes,
Your light is brighter than the Moon…
Step into the garden so all the flowers…
Even the tall poplar can kneel before your beauty…
Let your voice silence the lily famous for its hundred tongues,
When you want to be kind…
You are softer than the soul…
But when you withdraw…
You can be so cold and harsh.
Dear one, you can be wild and rebellious…
But when you meet him face to face…
His charm will make you docile like the earth,
Throw away your shield and bare your chest…
There is no stronger protection than him.
That’s why when the Lover withdraws from the world…
He covers all the cracks in the wall…
So the outside light cannot come through,
He knows that only the inner light illuminates his world!”
“I am an atom;
you are like the countenance of the Sun for me.
I am a patient of Love
you are like medicine for me.
Without wings, without feathers,
I fly about looking for you.
I have become a Rose petal
and you are like the Wind for me.
Take me for a ride.”
“We are the mirror, as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste of eternity this minute.
We are pain and what cures pain.
We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.
Soul of the world, no life, nor world remain,
no beautiful women and men longing.
Only this ancient love circling the holy black stone of nothing.
Where the lover is the loved, the horizon and everything within it.”
“So Recklessly Exposed
December and January, gone.
Tulips coming up. It’s time to watch
how trees stagger in the wind
and roses never rest.
Wisteria and Jasmine twist on themselves.
Violet kneels to Hyacinth, who bows.
Narcissus winks, wondering what will
the lightheaded Willow say
of such slow dancing by Cypress.
Painters come outdoors with brushes.
I love their hands.
The birds sing suddenly and all at once.
The soul says Ya Hu, quietly.
A dove calls, Where, Ku?
Soul, you will find it.
Now the roses show their breasts.
No one hides when the Friend arrives.
The Rose speaks openly to the Nightingale.
Notice how the Green Lily has several tongues
but still keeps her secret.
Now the Nightingale sings this love
that is so recklessly exposed, like you.”
“This is a gathering of Lovers.
In this gathering
there is no high, no low,
no smart, no ignorant,
no special assembly,
no grand discourse,
no proper schooling required.
There is no master,
no disciple.”
“Because I Cannot Sleep
I make music at night.
I am troubled by the one
whose face has the color of spring flowers.
I have neither sleep nor patience,
neither a good reputation nor disgrace.
A thousand robes of wisdom are gone.
All my good manners have moved a thousand miles away.
The heart and the mind are left angry with each other.
The stars and the moon are envious of each other.
Because of this alienation the physical universe
is getting tighter and tighter.
The moon says, ‘How long will I remain
suspended without a sun?’
Without Love’s jewel inside of me,
let the bazaar of my existence be destroyed stone by stone.
O Love, You who have been called by a thousand names,
You who know how to pour the wine
into the chalice of the body,
You who give culture to a thousand cultures,
You who are faceless but have a thousand faces,
O Love, You who shape the faces
of Turks, Europeans, and Zanzibaris,
give me a glass from Your bottle,
or a handful of being from Your Branch.
Remove the cork once more.
Then we’ll see a thousand chiefs prostrate themselves,
and a circle of ecstatic troubadours will play.
Then the addict will be freed of craving.
and will be resurrected,
and stand in awe till Judgement Day”
“You call out, I am the lover,
But these are mere words.
If you see lover and Beloved as two,
you either have double vision,
or you can’t count.”
“A woman is a beam of the divine light
she is not the being whom sensual
desire takes as it’s the object
she is a creator it should be said
she is not a creature
she is infinite love
can find all this”
“Maulana’s Last Letter To Shams
Sometimes I wonder, sweetest love if you
Were a mere dream in along winter night,
A dream of spring days, and of golden light
Which sheds its rays upon a frozen heart;
A dream of wine that fills the drunken eye.
And so I wonder, sweetest love if I
Should drink this ruby wine, or rather weep;
Each tear a bezel with your face engraved,
A rosary to memorize your name…
There are so many ways to call you back-
Yes, even if you only were a dream.”
“I came with many knots in my heart,
like the magician’s rope.
You undid them all at once.
I see now the splendor of the student
and that of the teacher’s art.
Love and this body sit inside your presence,
one demolished the other drunk.
We smile. We weep, tree limbs
turning sere, then light green.”
“When Love comes suddenly and taps
on your window, run and let it in but first
shut the door of your reason.
Even the smallest hint chases love away
like smoke that drowns the freshness
of the morning breeze.
To reason, Love can only say,
the way is barred, you can’t pass through
but to the lover, it offers a hundred blessings.
Before the mind decides to take a step
Love has reached the seventh heaven.
Before the mind can figure how
Love has climbed the Holy Mountain.
I must stop this talk now and let
Love speak from its nest of silence.”
“Love is neither a tale nor a game.
Love is such a powerful torrent
that no one can stand in front of it.
Love is the flame which, when it blazes,
consumes everything other than the Beloved”
“Die! Die! Die in this love!
If you die in this love, Your soul will be renewed.
Die! Die! Don’t fear the death of that which is known
If you die to the temporal, You will become timeless.”
“Let lovers be crazy, disgraceful and wild
Those who fret about such things
Aren’t in love.”
“With passion pray.
With passion make love.
With passion eat and drink and dance and play.
Why look like a dead fish in this ocean of God?”
“I’m in love!
Your advice, what are they?
Love has poisoned me!
Your remedies, what are they?
I hear them shout:
“fast, Bind him feet!”
But if my heart has gone mad!
Those strings on my feet
What is the point?”
“You cannot hide love
Love will get on its way
To the heart of someone you love
Far or near, it goes home
To where it belongs
To the heart of lovers.”
“Love is the cure,
for your pain will keep giving birth to more pain
until your eyes constantly exhale love as effortlessly as your body yields its scent.”
“To Love is to be God.
Never will a Lover’s chest
feel any sorrow.
Never will a Lover’s robe
be touched by mortals.
Never will a Lover’s body
be found buried in the earth.
To Love is to be God.”
“Love isn’t the work of the tender and the gentle;
Love is the work of wrestlers.
The one who becomes a servant of lovers
is really a fortunate sovereign.
Don’t ask anyone about Love; ask Love about Love.
Love is a cloud that scatters pearls.”
“Love so needs to love
that it will endure almost anything, even abuse,
just to flicker for a moment. But the sky’s mouth is kind,
its song will never hurt you, for I
sing those words.”
“The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.”
“You think you are alive
because you breathe air?
Shame on you,
that you are alive in such a limited way.
Don’t be without Love,
so you won’t feel dead.
Die in Love
and stay alive forever.”
“Oh Beloved,
take me.
Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you
let the fire burn me from inside.
Oh Beloved,
take away what I want.
Take away what I do.
Take away what I need.
Take away everything
that takes me from you”
“I swear, since seeing Your face,
the whole world is fraud and fantasy
The garden is bewildered as to what is a leaf
or blossom. The distracted birds
can’t distinguish the birdseed from the snare.”
“My Soul is my Guide,
for my Soul is of that Abode
I will not Speak of the Earthly,
I am of the Unknown.”
“Tis the fire of love that inspires the flute,
Tis the ferment of love that possesses the wine.”
“you mustn’t be afraid of death
you’re a deathless soul
you can’t be kept in a dark grave
you’re filled with God’s glow
be happy with your beloved
you can’t find any better
the world will shimmer
because of the diamond you hold
when your heart is immersed
in this blissful love
you can easily endure
any bitter face around
in the absence of malice
there is nothing but
happiness and good times
don’t dwell in sorrow my friend”
– Translated by Nader Khalili “Rumi, Fountain of Fire”
Khalili wrote translations of poetry from Rumi
“OH HAPPY DAY when in you presence, my ruler, I shall die!
When near the sugar-treasure melting like sugar I shall die!
Out of my dust will grow a thousand of centrifolias
When in the shade of yonder cypress in gardens I shall die.
And when you pour into my goblet the bitter drink of death,
I’ll kiss the goblet full of joy, dear, and drunken I shall die.
I may turn yellow like the autumn when people speak of death,
Thanks to your smiling lip: like springtime and smiling shall I die.
I have died many times, but your breath made me alive again,
Should I die thus a hundred more times I happily shall die!
A child that dies in mother’s bosom, that’s how I am, my friend,
For in the bosom of His Mercy and kindness, I shall die.
Say: Where would death be for the lovers? Impossible is that!
For in the fountain of the Water of Life – there I shall die!”
– translated by Annemarie Schimmel, “Look! This is Love” Boston: Shambhala Centaur Editions, 1996
Schimmel wrote translations of poetry from Rumi
Rumi Life Poems
“Out of this dust
you have created a personal image,
and have forgotten
about the essence of your true origin
Be motivated like the falcon,
hunt gloriously.
Be as magnificent as the leopard,
fight to win.
Spend less time with
nightingales and peacocks.
One is all talk,
the other only color.”
“First, when I was apart from you,
this world did not exist, nor any other.
Second, whatever I was looking for
was always you.”
“What else can I say?
You will only hear
what you are ready to hear.
Don’t nod your head,
Don’t try to fool me—
the truth of what you see
is written all over your face!”
“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!”
“When the soul rises
Into lips
You feel the kiss
You have wanted.”
“Look carefully around you and recognize
the luminosity of souls.
Sit beside those who draw you to that.”
“My dear soul, flee from the worthless,
stay close only to those with a pure heart.
Like attracts like.
A crow will lead you to the graveyard,
a parrot to a lump of sugar.”
“Your soul is so close to mine
That what you dream, I know.
I know everything you think of: your heart is so close to mine!”
“I went inside my heart
to see how it was.
Something there makes me hear
the whole world weeping.”
“When I am with you, we stay up all night
When you are not here, I can’t go to sleep
Praise God for this two insomnia!
And the difference between them.”
“My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I’ll be completely sober.”
“Don’t run around this world
looking for a hole to hide in.
There are wild beasts in every cave!
If you live with mice,
the cat claws will find you.”
“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, nor don’t.
You have wings.
Learn to use them and fly.”
“You are my wine, my joy,
My garden, my springtime,
My slumber, my repose,
Without you, I can’t cope.”
“Imagine a man selling his donkey
to be with Jesus.
Now imagine him selling Jesus
to get a ride on a donkey.
This does happen.
Jesus can transform a drunk into gold.
If the drunk is already golden,
he can be changed to pure diamond.
If already that, he can become the circling
planets, Jupiter, Venus, the moon.
Never think that you are worthless.
God has paid an enormous amount for you,
and the gifts keep arriving.”
“When you look for God,
God is in the look of your eyes
In the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self,
or things that have happened to you
There’s no need to go outside.
Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.
A white flower grows in the quietness.
Let your tongue become that flower.”
“When you hear a dirty story
wash your ears.
When you see ugly stuff
wash your eyes.
When you get bad thoughts
to wash your mind. and Keep your feet muddy.”
Rumi Wedding Poems
“May the blessings which flow in all weddings
be gathered, God, together in our wedding!
The blessings of the Night of Power,
the month of fasting
the festival to break the fast
the blessings of the meeting of Adam and Eve
the blessings of the meeting of Joseph and Jacob
the blessings of gazing on the paradise of all abodes
and yet another blessing which cannot be put in words:
the fruitful scattering of joy
of the children of the Shayak
and our eldest!In companionship and happiness
may you be like milk and honey
in union and fidelity,
just like sugar and halva.
May the blessings of those who toast
and the one who pours the wine
anoint the ones who said Amen and
the one who said the prayer.”– Translation by Franklin D. Lewis “Rumi — Past and Present, East and West” Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2000
Lewis wrote translations of poetry from Rumi
“May these vows and this marriage be blessed.
May it be sweet milk,
this marriage, like wine and halvah.
May this marriage offer fruit and shade
like the date palm.
May this marriage be full of laughter,
our every day a day in paradise.
May this marriage be a sign of compassion,
a seal of happiness here and hereafter.
May this marriage have a fair face and a good name,
an omen as welcome
as the moon in a clear blue sky.
I am out of words to describe
how spirit mingles in this marriage.”– Kabir Helminski “Love is a Stranger” Threshold Books, 1993
“May these nuptials be blessed for us, may this marriage be blessed for us,
May it be ever like milk and sugar, this marriage like wine and halvah.
May this marriage be blessed with leaves and fruits like the date tree;
May this marriage be laughing forever, today, tomorrow, like the houris of paradise.
May this marriage be the sign of compassion and the approval of happiness here and hereafter;
May this marriage be fair of fame, fair of face and fair of omen as the moon in the azure sky.
I have fallen silent for words cannot describe how the spirit has mingled with this marriage.”– Translation by A.J. Arberry “Mystical Poems of Rumi 2” The University of Chicago Press, 1991
Arberry translations of poetry from Rumi
“Our feast, our wedding
Will be auspicious to the world.
God fit the feast and wedding
To our length like a proper garment.Venus and the moon
Will be matched to each other,
The parrot with sugar.
The most beautifully-faced Beloved
Makes a different kind of wedding every night.With the favor of our Sultan’s prosperity,
Hearts become spacious
And men pair up with each other.
Troubles and anxieties are all gone.Here tonight, You go again
To the wedding and feasting.
O beauty who adorned our city,
You will be groom to the beauties.How nicely You walk in our neighborhood,
Coming to us so beautifully.
O our river, O One
Who is searching for us,
How nicely You flow in our stream.How nicely You flow with our desires,
Unfastening the binding of our feet.
You make us walk so nicely, holding our hand,
O Joseph of our world.Cruelty suits You well.
It’s a mistake for us to expect Your loyalty.
Step as You wish on our bloody Soul.O Soul of my Soul, pull our Souls
To our Beloved’s temple.
Take this piece of bone.
Give it as a gift to our Huma*.O wise ones, give thanks
To our Sultan’s kindness, who adds Souls to Soul,
Keep dancing, O considerate ones.
Keep whirling and dancing.At the wedding night of rose and Nasrin*
I hang the drum on my neck.
Tonight, the tambourine and small drum
Will become our clothes.Be silent! Venus becomes the Cupbearer tonight
And offers glasses to our sweetheart,
Whose skin is fair and rosy,
Who takes a glass and drinks.For the sake of God, because of our praying,
Now Sufis become exuberant
At the assembly of God’s Absence.
They put the belt of zeal on their waists
And start Sama’*.One group of people froth like the sea,
Prostrating like waves.
The other group battles like swords,
Drinking the blood of our glasses.Be silent! Tonight, the Sultan
Went to the kitchen.
He is cooking with joy.
But a most unusual thing,
Tonight, the Beloved is cooking our Halva*.”– Translated by Nevit Oguz Ergin, WA, U.S.A
Ergin translations of poetry from Rumi
Few Facts about Rumi
He was a Sufi mystic poet from Persia and is the bestselling poet among US Muslims.
Rumi was born in Central Asia, most likely in present-day Tajikistan, near the border of Afghanistan.
It is believed he was able to see visions of angels during childhood.
When Rumi met his great teacher, companion, and beloved Shams of Tabriz, he was already in his late thirties, Shams about sixty years old. Rumi did not begin writing poetry seriously until the traumatic disappearance of Shams of Tabriz from his life.
His poems are widely regarded as sublime fusions of the erotic and the devotional.
His admirers include Madonna and Philip Glass.
He was likely never called “Rumi” during his lifetime.
Rumi spent part of his life as a refugee and migrant.
In Conclusion
Rumi’s quotes and poems are simple enough to be understood, and his timeless views about Life, Love & Death are still applicable even in our present world. His words will continue to inspire people from all over the world.
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