How will you know the difficulties of being human, if you are always flying off to blue perfection? Where will you plant your grief seeds? Workers need ground to scrape and hoe, not the sky...

Beauty surrounds us.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Late, by myself, in the boat of myself,no light and no land anywhere,cloudcover thick. I try to stayjust above the surface, yet I’m already underand living within the ocean.

Either give me more wine or leave me alone.

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.

I didn’t come here of my own accord, and I can’t leave that way.Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.

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.

The cure for pain is in the pain.

Out beyond ideasof wrongdoing and rightdoing,there is a field.I’ll meet you there.

The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said: “My Companions are as stars. Whomsoever of them you follow, you will be rightly guided.” When a man looks at a star, and finds his way...

Inside you there’s an artist you don’t know about… say yes quickly, if you know, if you’ve known it from before the beginning of the universe.

I am your moon and your moonlight tooI am your flower garden and your water tooI have come all this way, eager for youWithout shoes or shawlI want you to laughTo kill all your worriesTo...

Don’t try to steer the boat. Don’t open shop for yourself. Listen. Keep silent. You are not God’s mouthpiece. Try to be an ear, And if you do speak, ask for explanations.

A wealth you cannot imagineflows through you.Do not consider what strangers say.Be secluded in your secret heart-house,that bowl of silence.

I waitwith silent passionfor one gestureone glancefrom you

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

What you seek is seeking you.

you are a volume in the divine booka mirror to the power that created the universewhatever you want, ask it of yourselfwhatever you’re looking for can only be foundinside of you

If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?

Where lowland is, that’s where water goes. All medicine wants is pain to cure.

There is nothing I want but your presence.In friendship, time dissolves.Life is a cup. This connectionis pure wine. What else are cups for?I used to have twenty thousanddifferent desires.

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...

The way of love is not a subtle argument. The door there is devastation. Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall, and falling, they’re given wings.

There are thousands of wines that can take over our minds. Don’t think all ecstasies are the same!

Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.

An eye is meant to see things.The soul is here for its own joy.A head has one use: For loving a true love.Feet: To chase after.Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind,for learning...

If you are seeking, seek us with joyFor we live in the kingdom of joy.Do not give your heart to anything elseBut to the love of those who are clear joy,Do not stray into the...

These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.

Why struggle to open a door between us when the whole wall is an illusion?

What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.

We may know who we are or we may not. We may be Muslims, Jews or Christians but until our hearts become the mould for every heart we will see only our differences.

If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.

You have forgotten the Onewho doesn’t care about ownership,who doesn’t try to turn a profitfrom every human exchange.

Life’s waters flow from darkness, Search the darkness, don’t run from it.

Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart. Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.

Forget safety.Live where you fear to live.Destroy your reputation.Be notorious.

My lips got lost on the way to the kiss – that’s how drunk Iwas.

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.

A craftsman pulled a reed from the reedbed,cut holes in it, and called it a human being.Since then, it’s been wailing a tender agonyof parting, never mentioning the skillthat gave it life as a flute

the more one delves into Rumi’s life and his mystical poetry it becomes clear that for him, the issue of faith and reason is incomplete unless one includes the central theme of love.

You are my wine, my joy,My garden, my springtime,My slumber, my repose,Without you, I can’t cope.

Notice how each particle moves.Notice how everyone has just arrived here from a journey.Notice how each wants a different food.Notice how the stars vanish as the sun comes up, and how all streams stream toward...

Come with me while the wine shop is still open.We are dizzy with meeting each other.

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.

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...

The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell youDon’t go back to sleep!You must ask for what you really want.Don’t go back to sleep!People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two...

If you desire healing,let yourself fall illlet yourself fall ill.

The heart is cooking a pot of food for you. Be patient until it is cooked