Quotes from The Essential Rumi

“Don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
When the door is so wide open?”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Be melting snow.
Wash yourself of yourself.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Respond to every call
that excites your spirit.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“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!”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“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.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absentminded. Someone sober will worry about things going badly. Let the lover be. ”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“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”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon;
How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“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.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Drum sound rises on the air, its throb, my heart.

A voice inside the beat says, "I know you're tired, but come. This is the way.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“I will be waiting here....
For your silence to break,
For your soul to shake,
For your love to wake!”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“You are so weak. Give up to grace.
The ocean takes care of each wave till it gets to shore.
You need more help than you know.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“What matters is how quickly you do what your soul directs.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Whoever's calm and sensible is insane!”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“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.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“I don't want learning, or dignity, or respectability. I want this music, and this dawn, and the warmth of your cheek against mine.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“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.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“You have forgotten the One
who doesn't care about ownership,
who doesn't try to turn a profit
from every human exchange.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“There is a basket of fresh bread on your head, yet you go door to door asking for crusts.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“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.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“There are thousands of wines
that can take over our minds.

Don't think all ecstasies
are the same!

Jesus was lost in his love for God.
His donkey was drunk with barley.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“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.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“There is a secret medicine given only to those who hurt so hard they can't hope.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Brother, stand the pain.
Escape the poison of your impulses.
The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do.
Learn to light the candle. Rise with the sun.
Turn away from the cave of your sleeping.
That way a thorn expands to a rose.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“There's no one with intelligence in this town except that man over there playing with the children, the one riding the stick horse. He has keen, fiery insight and vast dignity like the night sky, but he conceals it in the madness of child's play.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Are you jealous of the ocean’s generosity?
Why would you refuse to give
this joy to anyone?

Fish don’t hold the sacred liquid in cups!
They swim the huge fluid freedom.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

“Knowledge that is acquired
is not like this. Those who have it worry if
audiences like it or not.
It's a bait for popularity.
Disputational knowing wants customers.
It has no soul...
The only real customer is God.
Chew quietly
your sweet sugarcane God-Love, and stay
playfully childish.”
― Rumi, quote from The Essential Rumi

About the author

Popular quotes

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Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.