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Famous Rumi Quotes

“Know, son, that everything in the universe is a pitcher brimming with wisdom and beauty, the universe is a drop of the 'Tigris of His beauty, this beauty was a Hidden Treasure so full it burst open and made the earth more radiant than the heavens.”

KnowsMadeEarthUniverseHeavenBeautySonTreasurePitcherRadiantHidden Treasure
Book:The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations of Mevlâna Jalâluddin Rumi
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“Creatures are cups. The sciences and the arts and all branches of knowledge are inscriptions around the outside of the cups. When a cup shatters, the writing can no longer be read. The wine's the thing! The wine that's held in the mold of these physical cups. Drink the wine and know what lasts and what to love. The man who truly asks must be sure of two things: One, that he's mistaken in what he's doing or thinking now. And two, that there is a wisdom he doesn't know yet. Asking is half of knowing.”

ThinkingKnowsMenWritingArtTwoLastsAsksHalfKnowingHe ManDrinkCreaturesAskingWineCupsBranchesTwo ThingsMistakenMoldInscriptions
Author:Rumi
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“A man or a woman is said to be absorbed when the water has total control of him, and he no control of the water. A swimmer moves around willfully. An absorbed being has no will but the water's going. Any word or act is not really personal, but the way the water has of speaking or doing. As when you hear a voice coming out of a wall, and you know that it's not the wall talking, but someone inside, or perhaps someone outside echoing off the wall. Saints are like that. They've achieved the condition of a wall, or a door.”

KnowsMenWaySaidMovingVoiceWaterTalkingDoorsConditionsWallSaintComing OutSwimmerOff The Wall
Author:Rumi
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“The ear participates, and helps arrange marriages; the eye has already made love with what it sees. The eye knows pleasure, delights in the body's shape: the ear hears words that talk about all this. When hearing takes place, character areas change; but when you see, inner areas change. If all you know about fire is what you have heard see if the fire will agree to cook you! Certain energies come only when you burn. If you long for belief, sit down in the fire! When the ear receives subtly; it turns into an eye. But if words do not reach the ear in the chest, nothing happens.”

IfsKnowsLongMadeCharacterHelpingBodyHappensEyeCertainTurnsBeliefEnergyPleasureFireHeardShapesAreasEarsAgreeDelightHearingCooksChests
Book:The Rumi Collection: An Anthology of Translations of Mevlâna Jalâluddin Rumi
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“Without you the instruments would die. One sits close beside you. Another takes a long kiss. The tambourine begs, Touch my skin so I can be myself. Let me feel you enter each limb bone by bone, that what died last night can be whole today. Why live some soberer way, and feel you ebbing out? I won't do it. Either give me enough wine or leave me alone, now that I know how it is to be with you in constant conversation.”

KnowsWayGivingFeelsLongI CanEnoughWholeTodayLastsNightDiesKnow HowConversationKissingSkinsLet MeGive MeDiedInstrumentsWineConstantBonesLimbsLeaving MeLast NightWithout YouMe AloneLeave Me AloneBeside You
Author:Rumi
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“I want to see you. Know your voice. Recognize you when you first come 'round the corner. Sense your scent when I come into a room you've just left. Know the lift of your heel, the glide of your foot. Become familiar with the way you purse your lips then let them part, just the slightest bit, when I lean in to your space and kiss you. I want to know the joy of how you whisper "more”

KnowsWayWantFirstsJoyLeftBitsVoiceSpaceRoomsFeetKissingRoundsLipsCornersFamiliarLiftsHeelsScentPursesWant To See You
Author:Rumi
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“IGNORANCE I didn’t know love would make me this crazy, with my eyes like the river Ceyhun carrying me in its rapids out to sea,where every bit of shattered boat sinks to the bottom. An alligator lifts its head and swallows the ocean, then the ocean floor becomes a desert covering the alligator in sand drifts. Changes do happen. I do not know how, or what remains of what has disappeared into the absolute. I hear so many stories and explanations, but I keep quiet, because I don’t know anything, and because something I swallowed in the ocean has made me completely content with ignorance.”

KnowsMadeStoriesHappensEyeBitsKnow HowSeaCrazyIgnoranceQuietOceanRiversAbsolutesRemainsBottomBoatDesertLiftsExplanationSandRapidsCoveringShatteredAlligators
Author:Rumi
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