The Sufi mystic and poet Rumi may have lived a long time ago, but his influence continues to transcend time, national borders, and even ethnic conflict. Once you have read through this collection of Rumi quotes, you'll understand exactly why his legacy has been so enduring.
Who was Rumi, though? And what the heck does he have to do with Stoicism?
In this article, we're going to take a look at more than 121 quotes from Rumi about life, love, and the universe, all while exploring the places where Stoicism and Rumi's writings overlap.
So, without further ado, let's dive in!
There is no shortage of Rumi quotes about love! He speaks about love both as a romantic connection between people and also as a profound spiritual force that is present in the universe.
“Love is the bridge between you and everything.”
– Rumi
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
– Rumi
“Love is a river. Drink from it.”
– Rumi
“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.”
– Rumi
“Believe in love's infinite journey, for it is your own, for you are love. Love is life.”
– Rumi
“A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.”
– Rumi
Rest assured that you could spend the rest of your life contemplating all of Rumi's thoughts on love!
Here are some more quotes to inspire you and help you tap into the force of love in your life and the universe.
“I was dead, then alive. Weeping, then laughing. The power of love came into me, and I became fierce like a lion, then tender like the evening star.”
– Rumi
“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.”
– Rumi
“Let yourself be drawn by the stronger pull of that which you truly love.”
– Rumi
“Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.”
– Rumi
“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”
– Rumi
“The minute I heard my first love story, I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.”
– Rumi
“If the house of the world is dark, Love will find a way to create windows.”
– Rumi
“Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.”
– Rumi
Haven't gotten your fill? Here are even more Rumi quotes about love, both in its personal and universal forms.
“Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end.”
– Rumi
“Gamble everything for love, if you're a true human being.”
– Rumi
“Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.”
– Rumi
“To love is human. To feel pain is human. Yet to still love despite the pain is pure angel.”
– Rumi
“The garden of love is green without limit and yields many fruits other than sorrow or joy. Love is beyond either condition: without spring, without autumn, it is always fresh. “
– Rumi
One of the things that Rumi's writings have in common with the writings of the Stoics is the focus on personal transformation and self-improvement.
Like the Stoics, Rumi tells us that truly wise people will try to change themselves (aka what they're in control of) rather than the world (aka everything they're not in control of.)
“As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.”
– Rumi
“The inspiration you seek is already within you. Be silent and listen.”
– Rumi
“Lovely days don’t come to you, you should walk to them.”
– Rumi
“It's your road & yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.”
– Rumi
“Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more - more unseen forms become manifest to him.”
– Rumi
“Innumerable changes of moods are yours, and they are uncontrolled by you. If you knew their origin, you would be able to dominate them. If you cannot localize your own changes, how can you localize that which formed you?”
– Rumi
Searching for some general advice on being alive from one of the greatest poets and spiritual thinkers of all time? Look no further than our list of Rumi quotes on life.
“Life is balance of holding on and letting go.”
– Rumi
“Respond to every call that excites your spirit.”
– Rumi
“You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?”
– Rumi
“Who could be so lucky? Who comes to a lake for water and sees the reflection of the moon.”
– Rumi
“If you knew the secret of life, you too would choose no other companion but love.”
– Rumi
“What you are seeking is also seeking you.”
– Rumi
In these quotes on friendship from our favorite Sufi poet, we find an emphasis on the importance of genuine connections and true companionship. Friendship-- true friendship-- involves people who support and guide each other unconditionally.
“If you are looking for a friend who is faultless, you will be friendless.”
– Rumi
“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
– Rumi
“A candle never loses any of its light while lighting up another candle.”
– Rumi
“Whoever is sitting with friends is in the midst of a flower garden, though he may be in the fire. Whoever sits with an enemy is in the fire, even though he is in the midst of a garden.”
– Rumi
“Friend, our closeness is this: anywhere you put your foot, feel me in the firmness under you.”
– Rumi
There are some wonderful quotes from the ancient Stoics about focusing on the present moment rather than the past or the future, and Rumi has some to throw in the ring, too.
Rumi often emphasizes the importance of being mindful and present. It's so easy to get trapped thinking about everything except what's actually happening right now. If you're looking for some help tapping into the current moment, check out these profound quotes from Rumi.
“My friend, the sufi is the friend of the present moment. To say tomorrow is not our way.”
– Rumi
“Look past your thoughts, so you may drink the pure nectar of This Moment.”
– Rumi
“Let go of your mind and then be mindful. Close your ears and listen!”
– Rumi
“Do not look back, No one knows how the world ever began. Do not fear the future, Nothing lasts forever. If you dwell on the past or future, You will miss the moment.”
– Rumi
If you decide to become a connoisseur of Rumi's poetry, you'll soon find that it is often reflecting on the vastness, beauty, and interconnectedness of the universe.
In his worldview, all things are connected. The universe is within us just as much as it is without us, and we can work to explore the universe in ourselves.
“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
– Rumi
“Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty.”
– Rumi
“You are not just the drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in the drop.”
– Rumi
“Shine like the whole universe is yours.”
– Rumi
“Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.”
– Rumi
“The universe and the light of the stars come through me.”
– Rumi
“Everything in the universe is a pitcher brimming with wisdom and beauty.”
– Rumi
“Behind every atom of this world hides an infinite Universe.”
– Rumi
“What is the body? That shadow of a shadow of your love, that somehow contains the entire universe.”
– Rumi
“Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you.”
– Rumi
“Do you know what you are? You are a manuscript of 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 already that.”
– Rumi
As you might imagine, Rumi's idea of success isn't about buying a fancy car or living in a mansion. Instead, success involves spiritual growth, inner fulfillment, and personal transformation.
In these quotes from Rumi, we get a much deeper sense of success than we can from those who try to sell the notion of worldly success.
“Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune: every success depends upon focusing the heart.”
– Rumi
“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”
– Rumi
Just like Marcus Aurelius, Seneca the Younger, and the other great Stoics, Rumi often touches upon the importance of gratitude in our lives.
Gratitude isn't just something to practice because it is theoretically the right thing to do. To Rumi, gratitude can be a spiritual and transformative practice.
When you actively work to acknowledge your gratitude for what you do have, it can open your heart to abundance, enrich your life, and deepen your connection to spiritual reality.
“Whatever happens to you, don't fall in despair. Even if all the doors are closed, a secret path will be there for you that no one knows. You can't see it yet but so many paradises are at the end of this path...Be grateful! It is easy to thank after obtaining what you want, thank before having what you want.”
– Rumi
“But listen to me. For one moment quit being sad. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you.”
– Rumi
Another common topic in the writings of Rumi is that of happiness. Again, he isn't talking about obtaining happiness through material delights but rather through a more internal process.
If the things you've been doing to make yourself happy haven't been working, consider using Rumi's formula:
“The soul is here for its own joy.”
– Rumi
“If something makes you happy in this world, you should think of what will happen to you if that thing were taken away.”
– Rumi
“O, happy the soul that saw its own faults.”
– Rumi
“Come sit with me! Let us drink the holy wine of happiness.”
– Rumi
“Whatever lifts the corners of your mouth, trust that.”
– Rumi
Beauty is another focus of Rumis's work, with discussion on both the topics of inner and outer beauty.
For example, the first quote in our list points out that true beauty lies in the actions we take and in the things we love. Beauty isn't just an aesthetic concept but rather a notion that has to do with the depth of our expressions and passions.
“Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”
– 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
“Everything that is made beautiful and fair and lovely is made for the eye of one who sees.”
– Rumi
Emotions were a popular topic both for Rumi and for the ancient Stoics. Rumi teaches how to deal with emotions, including anger, through acknowledging, understanding, and embracing the full range of emotions with ourselves.
This may seem in contrast to Stoic writings on emotions, but this isn't necessarily the case. Seneca wrote that it's better to grieve than to deceive yourself, and being aware of your attitude and thoughtful about how you react isn't the same thing as repression.
Rumi encourages us to embrace emotional depth, understand that emotions are transient, and recognize the transformative power of emotional struggles and pain.
“Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”
– Rumi
"Love is an emotion. Totally silent and inexpressible with words."
– Rumi
"If I hold you with my emotions,
you'll become a wished-for companion."– Rumi
Rumi was, by all accounts, an incredibly wise man. So, what does he have to say on the topic of wisdom? What can we learn from him about how we can become wiser as we strive for personal growth and spiritual development?
One of the major points Rumi makes is that we don't just become wiser by acquiring knowledge from external sources. He proposes that there is inner knowledge that we can access through self-reflection, experience, and exploring our inner worlds.
Furthermore, Rumi tells us that we should overcome our desire to adhere to societal norms and superficial appearances and seek the truth.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
– Rumi
“Whatever pearl you seek, look for the pearl within the pearl!”
– Rumi
“The desire to know your own soul will end all other desires.”
– Rumi
“The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.”
– Rumi
“Wisdom is like the rain. Its source is unlimited, but it comes down according to the season. Grocers put sugar in a bag, but their supply of sugar is not the amount in the bag. When you come to a grocer, he has sugar in abundance. But he sees how much money you have brought and gives accordingly. Your currency on this Path is resolution and faith, and you are taught according to your resolution and faith. When you come seeking sugar, they examine your bag to see what its capacity is; then they measure out accordingly.”
– Rumi
“In their seeking, wisdom and madness are one and the same. On the path of love, friend and stranger are one and the same.”
– Rumi
“Friendship of the wise is good; a wise enemy is better than a foolish friend.”
– Rumi
“Pilgrimage to the place of the wise is to find escape from the flame of separateness.”
– Rumi
“Look for the answer inside your question.”
– Rumi
“The middle path is the way to wisdom.”
– Rumi
“Whoever travels without a guide, needs two hundred years for a two-day journey.”
– Rumi
“Close both eyes to see with the other eye.”
– Rumi
Whether you haven't spoken to another actual human being for a week or you're struggling to find one moment of alone time in a bustling house, Rumi's reflections on solitude just might strike a chord with you.
To Rumi, solitude is an opportunity to self-reflect. This is a chance to get away from external distractions, dive into your inner world, and connect with the divine.
“A little while alone in your room will prove more valuable than anything else that could ever be given you.”
– Rumi
“If you love someone, you are always joined with them--in joy, in absence, in solitude, in strife.”
– Rumi
“In silence there is eloquence.”
– Rumi
“Whenever you are alone, remind yourself that God has sent everyone else away so that there is only you and Him.”
– Rumi
For people who tend to stay away from anything with the word "religion" attached to it, it might be tempting to keep scrolling and skip this small collection of powerful quotes.
The truth is that Rumi stresses the significance of having a personal and intimate relationship with the divine. He promotes love and compassion as the central core of all religions and focuses on creating unity rather than conflict between belief systems.
“In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion.”
– Rumi
“I looked in temples churches and mosques. But I found the Divine within my heart.”
– Rumi
You have a strength inside you, whether you know it or not. If you're skeptical, remember that the wise ancient Stoics and Rumi said it, too!
“We rarely hear the inward music, but we're all dancing to it nevertheless.”
– Rumi
“What hurts the soul? To live without tasting the water of its own essence.”
– Rumi
“There is an invisible strength within us; when it recognizes two opposing objects of desire, it grows stronger.”
– Rumi
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, as they say.
Rumi is one of the many wise minds of history that recognizes that we end up growing and developing through adversity, so long as we don't let it destroy us.
“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
– Rumi
“Love is our steady guide on this road full of hardships.”
– Rumi
“Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure.”
– Rumi
“Work on your stony qualities and become resplendent like the ruby. Practice self-denial and accept difficulty. Always see infinite life in letting the self die. Your stoniness will decrease; your ruby nature will grow. The signs of self-existence will leave your body, and ecstasy will take you over.”
– Rumi
“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 of unspecified desire.”
– Rumi
“Hardship may dishearten at first, but every hardship passes away. All despair is followed by hope; all darkness is followed by sunshine.”
– Rumi
The Stoics talked a lot about fear as an incredibly destructive emotion. In fact, fear can keep us from really ever living at all. Here's a quote from Rumi that shows he was on the same page as Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and the like.
“Keep walking, though there's no place to get to. Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings. Move within, But don't move the way fear makes you move.”
– Rumi
We're all going to die someday, and many of us are deathly (ha) afraid of that reality. Overcoming the fear of death can free us to really start living, though. In these Rumi quotes, we can access a mindset that helps us accept and embrace the reality of death.
“I learned that every mortal will taste death. But only some will taste life.”
– Rumi
“Everyone is so afraid of death, but the real sufis just laugh: nothing tyrannizes their hearts. What strikes the oyster shell does not damage the pearl.”
– Rumi
“Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”
– Rumi
“At the end of my life, with just one breath left, if you come, I’ll sit up and sing.”
– Rumi
“Travelers, it is late. Life's sun is going to set. During these brief days that you have strength, be quick and spare no effort of your wings.”
– Rumi
“God gave you life and bestowed upon you his attributes; eventually you will return to him.”
– Rumi
“I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as a plant and rose to animal, I died as an animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?”
– Rumi
“Both swimmer and a drowned man are in the water; the latter is borne by the water and controlled by it, while the swimmer is borne along by his own power and of his own volition. Every movement made by the drowned man - indeed, every act and word that issue from him - comes from the water, not from him... The saints are like this. They have died before death.”
– Rumi
Feeling anxious recently? Rumi has some advice:
“Let go of your worries and be completely clear-hearted, like the face of a mirror that contains no images. If you want a clear mirror, behold yourself and see the shameless truth, which the mirror reflects. If metal can be polished to a mirror-like finish, what polishing might the mirror of the heart require? Between the mirror and the heart is this single difference: the heart conceals secrets, while the mirror does not.”
– Rumi
“Try not to resist the changes that come your way. Instead let life live through you. And do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?”
– Rumi
"All your anxiety is because of your desire for harmony. Seek disharmony, then you will gain peace."
– Rumi
We only have one life to live, so why not take advantage of it?
“The morning wind spreads its fresh smell. We must get up and take that in, that wind that lets us live. Breathe before it's gone.”
– Rumi
Finally, let's end off with some quotes about that ever-mentioned but always-elusive "purpose in life." Figuring out why you're here and how you can best live your life isn't easy.
At the same time, at least we have the help of impressive souls like Rumi to help guide us. If you're feeling lost in life, check out these quotes to see if they help you recognize "the strange pull of what you really love."
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”
– Rumi
“What in your life is calling you, When all the noise is silenced, The meetings adjourned... The lists laid aside, And the Wild Iris blooms By itself In the dark forest... What still pulls on your soul?”
– Rumi
“God's purpose for man is to acquire a seeing eye and an understanding heart.”
– Rumi
"Do not be satisfied with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth."
– Rumi
“What you seek is seeking you.”
– Rumi
Though Rumi wasn't a Stoic and the Stoics weren't Sufis, there's a lot of overlap in some of the core ideas. Rumi often discusses many of the common themes of Stoicism, including detachment from external factors beyond our control, emphasis on virtues, seeking inner transformation, and more.
Are you searching for more information about Stoicism to help you live a good life? Check out our Stoic Quotes blog for more inspirational quotes and articles!
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