Quotes from Rumi

Close both eyes to see with the other eye.

Weep like the waterwheel, that green herbs may spring up from the courtyard of your soul. If you wish for tears, have mercy on one who sheds tears; if you wish mercy, show mercy to the weak.

I have one small drop of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean.

I have been so naughted in Thy Love's existence that my nonexistence is a thousand times sweeter than my existence

Till man destroys "self" he is no true friend of God.

For those who realize that everything is from God, everything is the same.

A little while alone in your room will prove more valuable than anything else that could ever be given you.

Never be without remembrance of Him, for His remembrance gives strength and wings to the bird of the Spirit.

We are tasting the taste of eternity this minute.

Your heart mirrors not His love, Rusty with your sins it is, Remove this rust and you shall Perceive how Glorious He is.

Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river.

Whoever is sitting with friends is in the midst of a flower garden, though he may be in the fire. Whoever sits with an enemy is in the fire, even though he is in the midst of a garden.

And so it is, that both the Devil and the angelic Spirit present us with objects of desire to awaken our power of choice.

The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you.

There is a path from me to you that I am constantly looking for.

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.

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.

Snake's poison is life to the snake; it is in relation to man that it means "death.

Know mankind well, don't degrade every man as evil, and don't exalt every man thinking he is good. He who cannot discover himself; cannot discover the world.

If reason dominates in man, he rises higher than angels. If lust overpowers man, he descends lower than the beast.

A SEEING eye is better than three hundred blind men's: The eye can distinguish pearls from pebbles.

The men of God are like fishes in the ocean; they pop up into view on the surface here and there and everywhere, as they please.

Today I'm out wandering, turning my skull into a cup for others to drink wine from. In this town somewhere there sits a calm, intelligent man, who doesn't know what he's about to do!

Many have been led astray by the Qur'an: by clinging to that rope many have fallen into the well. There is no fault in the rope, O perverse man, for it was you who had no desire to reach the top.