My dear heart, never think you are better than others. Listen to their sorrows with compassion. If you want peace, don't harbor bad thoughts, do not gossip and don't teach what you do not know.
Look at me as many times as you wish, _x000D_ but you won’t get to know me! _x000D_ Since you have last seen me, _x000D_ I’ve changed a hundred times!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the idea that true understanding of a person goes beyond superficial observation, as people are constantly evolving.
In this quote by Rumi, the poet invites others to look at him multiple times, yet he asserts that they will never truly know him. This reflects a profound philosophical insight into the nature of identity and personal transformation: individuals are not static; they change continuously due to experiences, thoughts, and feelings. Therefore, to truly know someone requires more than mere observation; it necessitates deep engagement and understanding of their journey.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about personal growth, this quote could illustrate how much a person can change over time.
More from Rumi
All quotes →The Law of Wonder rules my life at last, _x000D_ ...I burn each second of my life to Love _x000D_ Each second of my life burns out in Love _x000D_ In each leaping second Love lives afresh.
Lovers have heartaches _x000D_ That can't be cured by drugs _x000D_ Or sleep, _x000D_ Or games, _x000D_ But only by seeing their beloved.
Every fragile beauty, every perfect forgotten sentence, you grieve their going away, but that is not how it is. Where they come from never goes dry. It is an always flowing spring.
Whatever you keep hidden in your heart, God _x000D_ manifests in you outwardly. Whatever the root of _x000D_ the tree feeds on in secret, affects the bough and _x000D_ the leaf.
Come on sweetheart let's adore one another before there is no more of you and me
Similar quotes
O take heart, my brothers. Even now... with every leader & every resource & every strategy of every nation on Earth arrayed against Her - Even now, O even now, my brothers, Life is in no danger of losing the argument! - For after all .... (as will be shown) She has only to change the subject.
For as men in battle are continually in the way of shot, so we, in this world, are ever within the reach of Temptation.
Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met at a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a room?...' You dare not.' And in the gunslinger's mind, those words echoed: You dare not.
I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth, a nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea.
The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth.
We're left with so little to go on. Only the present is full enough to seem complete, and even that is an optical illusion. The moment is bleeding off the page. We live on the precipice of our perceptions. At the edge of every living instant, the world shears away like a cliff of ice into the sea of what is forgotten.