Rumi

There are lovers content with longing. I’m not one of them.

Soul receives from soul that knowledge, therefore not by book nor from tongue. If knowledge of mysteries come after emptiness of mind, that is illumination of heart.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don't go back to sleep.

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.

This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor...Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

In the slaughterhouse of love, they kill only the best, none of the weak or deformed. Don't run away from this dying. Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat.

My lips got lost on the way to the kiss - that's how drunk I was.

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 agony of parting, never mentioning the skill that gave it life as a flute

Hear this if you can: If you want to reach him You have to go beyond yourself And when you finally arrive at the land of absence Be silent Don’t say a thing Ecstasy, not words, is the language spoken there

Like a sculptor, if necessary, carve a friend out of stone. Realize that your inner sight is blind and try to see a treasure in everyone.

Take someone who doesn't keep score, who's not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing, who has not the slightest interest even in his own personality: he's free.

Pull the thorn of existence out of the heart! Fast! For when you do, you will see thousands of rose gardens in yourself.

Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.

Keep your intelligence white hot and your grief glistening“ so your life will stay fresh.

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!

The Prophets accept all agony and trust it For the water has never feared the fire.

Since Love has made ruins of my heart The sun must come and illumine them. Such generosity has broken me with shame.

We were green: we ripened and grew golden. The Sea terrified us: we learned how to drown. Squat and earthbound, we unfolded huge wings. We started sober: are love's startled drunkards. You hide me in your cloak of nothingness Reflect my ghost in your glass of being I am nothing, yet appear: transparent dream Where your eternity briefly trembles.

Poems are rough notations for the music we are.

Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

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.