Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, commonly known to Westerners as Rumi, is the most popular Sufi poet in the world. His work is not only deep and intense, but also very ethereal. His poetry often stirs an emotion never touched and shows a facet never seen. Penlighten has a collection of some beautiful Rumi quotes that are worth reading, without which, life would literally feel quite disregarded.
Did You Know?
Rumi is considered to be the most popular poet in America. He is also the best selling poet in the country. In fact, pop star Madonna has used the translation of Rumi’s verses in her work, one of them being the song, “Bittersweet”.
You just have to read one of his quote, and you wouldn’t need any Tom, Dick, or Harry to tell you that this poet is simply the best when it comes to writing some phenomenal ecstatic words! Take any of his quotes, and you would be left in awe, perhaps it will take you to a different zone, where you would be in a trance, pondering over the meaning of life, relationships, and your very own existence.
To select a few of the classic quotes written by this legendary artist is virtually impossible. Each and every sentence that came from him was a gem from a philosopher’s mind. We needn’t say that, because readers across the world have given him the title of “The Best Poet”, especially the readers from the United States. We have tried our best to pick a few of his wonderful quotes to help you get an experience of the magical way in which he touches your life, and makes the perturbing elements of life seem so petty, and the simple journey of life so grand. The following sections contain a collection of quotes that highlight the different facets of life―love, life, change, grief, loss, dance, and more. Our picks will definitely take you to the rhapsodic state of spirituality and the ethereal.
FAMOUS QUOTES BY RUMI ON LOVE
Love is the most important element in life, the driving force that makes life worthwhile. A life without love is a face without smile, a flower without fragrance, and a painting without colors. Rumi himself emphasized a great deal on the feeling of love, how love should ideally be―without any expectations, without any shame. These quotes will help you understand the true meaning of love.
“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.”
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”
“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be.”
“Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.”
“Two there are who are never satisfied — the lover of the world and the lover of knowledge.”
“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.”
“Both light and shadow are the dance of Love.
Love has no cause, it is the astrolabe of God’s secrets.
Lover and loving are inseparable and timeless.
Although I may try to describe love,
when I experience it, I am speechless.
Although I may try to write about love, I am rendered helpless.
My pen breaks, and the paper slips away
at the ineffable place where lover loving and loved are one.
Every moment is made glorious by the light of Love.”
“I am your moon and your moonlight too
I am your flower garden and your water too
I have come all this way, eager for you
Without shoes or shawl
I want you to laugh
To kill all your worries
To love you
To nourish you.”
“I was dead, then alive.
Weeping, then laughing.
The power of love came into me,
and I became fierce like a lion,
then tender like the evening star.”
“Love is the bridge between you and everything.”
INSPIRING QUOTES BY RUMI ON LIFE
Life, as simple as we wish to keep it, tends to get all the more complicated. Life has become more like a puzzle than a journey, hasn’t it? Perhaps the following words will help you simplify the individual puzzle of your life …
“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”
“What you seek is seeking you.”
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don’t you?”
“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
“Knock, And He’ll open the door
Vanish, And He’ll make you shine like the sun
Fall, And He’ll raise you to the heavens
Become nothing, And He’ll turn you into everything.”
“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 branches are.
It cuts them to pieces. But not the leaves.
It leaves the leaves alone.”
“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.”
MOTIVATIONAL QUOTES BY RUMI ON PAIN
Where there is life, there is love, and where there is love, there is pain. Love makes us selfish, possessive, it makes us take control of things, but such is the nature of life that when we think we have full control of things, it snaps back at us. Pain is as inevitable in our life as love. But there is a bright side to it too …
“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
“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.”
“People want you to be happy. Don’t keep serving them your pain!
If you could untie your wings and free your soul of jealousy, you and everyone around you would fly up like doves.”
“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.”
“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?”
“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”
“Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.”
“When someone beats a rug,
the blows are not against the rug,
but against the dust in it.”
“You try to be faithful
And sometimes you’re cruel.
You are mine. Then, you leave.
Without you, I can’t cope.
And when you take the lead,
I become your footstep.
Your absence leaves a void.
Without you, I can’t cope.
You have disturbed my sleep,
You have wrecked my image.
You have set me apart.
Without you, I can’t cope.”
“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?”
GREAT QUOTES BY RUMI ON HEALING
If you tune your mind to a philosophical mode, you would agree when we say that all the pain, suffering, and complication in this world is a result of unhealed hearts and minds. It is a troubled soul that creates chaos, unrest, and all the unpleasantness that comes along. We all have been hurt, and all has not been healed in us.
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
“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.”
“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.”
“But listen to me. For one moment quit being sad. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you.”
“Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
“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!”
“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.”
“If you desire healing,
let yourself fall ill
let yourself fall ill.”
INSIGHTFUL QUOTES BY RUMI ON CHANGE
Change is the inevitable essence of life, and also the one that we humans are most resistant to. Change is often seen as a bargain, where one comfort needs to be traded with another potential benefit. The irony is that we constantly change ourselves, our lives, to seek stability. The need and repulsion towards being exposed to the unknown is nothing but a way to evolve. The following collection beautifully reflects the same.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”
“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.”
“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
“Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.”
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”
“Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.”
“A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.”
“And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?”
AMAZING QUOTES BY RUMI ON DANCE
What is dance? What is it but an art form that allows us to be free from the set postures of everyday life? Perhaps a means to get in touch with your own feelings, your own body, your love? Rumi has taken the need of dancing to an entirely different level. He connects dancing with life, love, with the very own existence of self, and to the ultimate form of meditation. The following quotes will help you understand what we’re trying to say …
“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.”
“Dance until you shatter yourself.”
“Angels dance only with You, Beloved
and only before You do I bow in adoration.
You may accept me or not but I will be at your feet forever.”
“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.”
“I am a drunkard from another kind of tavern. I dance to a silent tune. I am the symphony of stars.”
“Whosoever knoweth the power of the dance, dwelleth in God.”
“Daylight, full of small dancing particles and the one great turning, our souls are dancing with you, without feet, they dance. Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?”
Rumi was one of those philosophers and poets who never judged, never confined his thoughts to the parameters of right and wrong. He experienced, he allowed, he felt, he questioned, and he accepted. His quotes just reflect this essence of life. The essence that tells us to live, away from what the world tells us, away from where we are judged, and to just experience, give it our all, even if calls for betrayal, separation, pain? For every emotion that comes our way is an experience to another form of your existence, like a director that inspires an actor to bring forth his different emotions, making him shine under the spotlight, till he’s given his all to the movie called life.