Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

Persian Poet, Jurist, Theologian and Sufi Mystic, Known as “Rumi” meaning “the Roman”

"Flattery’s fire is hidden. Its sweet taste is apparent, but the smoke is bound to come out at last."

"Greed makes man blind and foolish, and makes him an easy prey for death."

"For the water animals, the ocean is like a garden; for the land animals, it is death and pain."

"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? Yet once more I shall die as a man, to soar with angels blest; but even from angelhood I must pass on: all except God perish. When I have sacrificed my angel soul, I shall become what no mind e’er conceived. Oh, let me not exist! For Non-existence proclaims in organ tones, “To Him we shall return.”"

"If something makes you happy in this world, you should think of what will happen to you if that thing were taken away."

"I died as a mineral and became a plant. I died as a plant and rose as an animal. I died as an animal and I was a Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?"

"Humankind is being led along an evolving course, through this migration of intelligences, and though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are."

"Let the beauty of what you love be what you do."

"Life’s picture is constantly undergoing change. The spirit beholds a new world every moment."

"No sickness worse than imagining thyself to be perfect can afflict thy soul."

"Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love."

"Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition. "

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in the grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make sense."

"Past and future are what veil God from our sight. Burn up both of them with fire! How long wilt thou be partitioned by these segments as a reed?"

"The lamps are different, but the Light is the same: it comes from beyond. O thou who art the kernel of Existence, the disagreement between Moslem, Zoroastrian and Jew depends on the standpoint."

"Prayer is the drowning and unconsciousness of the soul."

"The testing of good and bad is in order that the gold may boil and bring the scum to the top."

"The world is a playground, and death is the night."

"What is all beauty in the world? The image, like quivering boughs reflected in a stream, of that eternal Orchard which abides unwithered in the hearts of Perfect Men."

"The wars of mankind are like children’s fights - all meaningless, pitiless and contemptible."

"There is a force within that gives you life - seek that. In your body there lies a precious jewel - seek that. Oh, wandering Sufi, if you are in search of the greatest treasure, don’t look outside, look within, and seek that."

"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."

"What you seek is seeking you."

"If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?"

"The wound is the place where the Light enters you."

"Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious."

"Do not be satisfied with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth."

"Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form."

"Know your voice. "

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

"People want you to be happy. Don't keep serving them your pain! If you could untie your wings and free your soul of jealousy, you and everyone around you would fly up like doves."

"Reason is powerless in the expression of Love. Love alone is capable of revealing the truth of Love and being a Lover. The way of our prophets is the way of Truth. If you want to live, die in Love; die in Love if you want to remain alive."

"An eye is meant to see things. The soul is here for its own joy. A head has one use: For loving a true love. Feet: To chase after. Love is for vanishing into the sky. The mind, for learning what men have done and tried to do. Mysteries are not to be solved: The eye goes blind when it only wants to see why. A lover is always accused of something. But when he finds his love, whatever was lost in the looking comes back completely changed. "

"Love is the ark appointed for the righteous,Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape. Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition."

"Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison When the door is so wide open?"

"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."

"The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize."

"But listen to me. For one moment quit being sad. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you."

"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."

"There is no worse sickness for the soul,O you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection. The heart and eyes must bleed a lot before self-complacency falls away."

"Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down in always widening rings of being."

"Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river. When the ocean is searching for you, don't walk into the language-river. Listen to the ocean, and bring your talky business to an end Traditional words are just babbling in that presence, and babbling is a substitute for sight."

"To Love is to reach God."

"Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune: every success depends upon focusing the heart."

"Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader,are your own nature reflected in them."

"If you are wholly perplexed and in straits,have patience, for patience is the key to joy."

"If thou has not seen the devil, look at thine own self. "

"I have put duality away and seen the two worlds as one. "

"Let the beauty that we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. "

"Begin by reading thyself rather than books. "