Great Throughts Treasury

"Be occupied, then, with what you really value and let the thief take something else."

"Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear."

"Be wild and crazy and drunk with Love, if you are too careful, Love will not find you."

"Be quiet now and wait. It may be that the ocean one, the one we desire so to move into and become, desires us out here on land a little longer, going our sundry roads to the shore."

"Be like melting snow — wash yourself of yourself."

"Be like a river in generosity and giving help. Be like a sun in tenderness and pity. Be like night when covering other's faults. Be like a dead when furious and angry. Be like earth in modesty and humbleness. Be like a sea in tolerance. Be as you are or as you look like."

"Be with those who help your being. Don't sit with indifferent people, whose breath comes cold out of their mouths."

"Because of your love I have broken with my past."

"Beauty surrounds us."

"Become the sky. Take an axe to the prison wall. Escape."

"Beware! Don't allow yourself to do what you know is wrong, relying on the thought, 'Later I will repent and ask God's forgiveness.'"

"Before death takes away what you are given, give away what there is to give."

"Beyond Islam and unbelief there is a desert plain. For us, there is a passion in the midst of that expanse. The knower who reaches there will prostrate, there is neither Islam nor unbelief, nor any 'where' in that place."

"Beyond our ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make sense anymore."

"Birds make great sky-circles of their freedom. How do they learn it? They fall and falling, they’re given wings."

"Bitter your acts, bitter am I, Kindness your deeds, kindness am I, Pleasant and gentle, so you are, Fine honeyed lips and sweet talker."

"Birdsong brings relief to my longing. I am just as ecstatic as they are, but with nothing to say."

"Both light and shadow are the dance of Love. Love has no cause; it is the astrolabe of God's secrets...Lover and Loving are inseparable and timeless. Although I may try to describe Love, when I experience it, I am speechless. Although I may try to write about Love, I am rendered helpless; my pen breaks, and the paper slips away at the ineffable place where Lover, Loving and Loved are one. Every moment is made glorious by the light of Love."

"Break your pitcher against a rock. We don't need any longer to haul pieces of the ocean around."

"Birdwings - Your grief for what you've lost lifts a mirror up to where you're bravely working. Expecting the worst, you look, and instead, here's the joyful face you've been wanting to see. Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birdwings."

"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. A particular glows with the universal."

"Bring the pure wine of love and freedom. But sir, a tornado is coming. More wine, we'll teach this storm a thing or two about whirling."

"Body of earth, don't talk of earth Tell the story of pure mirrors The Creator has given you this splendor Why talk of anything else?"

"Body is not veiled from soul, neither soul from body, yet no man hath ever seen a soul."

"By God, when you see your beauty you will be the idol of yourself."

"Can you find another market like this? Where, with your one rose you can buy hundreds of rose gardens? Where, for one seed you get a whole wilderness? For one weak breath, the divine wind? You have been fearful of being absorbed in the ground, or drawn up by the air. Now your water-bead lets go and drops into the ocean, where it came from. This giving up is not a repenting. It is a deep honoring of yourself. When the ocean comes to you as a lover, marry, at once, quickly for God's sake. Don't postpone it. Existence has no better gift. No amount of searching will find this. A perfect falcon, for no reason, has landed on your shoulder, and become yours."

"Christian, Jew, Muslim, shaman, Zoroastrian, stone, ground, mountain, river, each has a secret way of being with the mystery, unique and not to be judged."

"Burdens are the foundations of ease and bitter things the forerunners of pleasure."

"Close both eyes to see with the other eye."

"Come on sweetheart let's adore one another before there is no more of you and me."

"Come, Come again! Whatever you are... Whether you are infidel, idolater or fire worshipper. Whether you have broken your vows of repentance a hundred times. This is not the gate of despair; this is the gate of hope. Come, come again... Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving. It doesn’t matter. Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vows a thousand times. Come, yet again, come, come."

"Come out of the circle of time, and into the circle of love."

"Clean out your ears, don't listen for what you already know."

"Come sit with me! Let us drink the holy wine of happiness."

"Consider how wool is turned into an elegantly designed carpet by coming into contact with an intelligent person."

"Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls. They are the privileged lovers who create a new world with their eyes of fiery passion."

"Criticism polishes my mirror."

"Dance in the middle of fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free… Dance until you shatter yourself."

"Corruption has a secret name, that greatness is not even heard. Death has a laugh that even angels do not know. Bloody fingers time embroidered tapestry of eternal mercy wants their turn to find? mad with love!"

"Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free."

"Dancing is not just getting up painlessly, like a leaf blown on the wind; dancing is when you tear your heart out and rise out of your body to hang suspended between the worlds."

"Darkness may hide the trees and the flowers from the eyes but it cannot hide love from the soul."

"Didn't I tell you not to be satisfied with the veil of this world? I am the master illusionist, it is me, who is the welcoming banner at the gate of your contentment."

"Daylight, full of small dancing particles and the one great turning, our souls are dancing with you, without feet, they dance. Can you see them when I whisper in your ear? All day and night, music, a quiet, bright reed song. If it fades, we fade."

"Do not ask me what my religion. I'm not Jewish. Not Zoroastrian. Nor Islam. Because I know, so a name I call, you will give another meaning than the meaning of life in my heart."

"Disputational knowing wants customers. It has no soul."

"Do not believe in an absurdity no matter who says it."

"Discipline enabled Heaven to be filled with light; discipline enabled the angels to be immaculate and holy."

"Do not leave me, hide in my heart like a secret, wind around my head like a turban. ‘I come and go as I please,’ you say, ‘swift as a heartbeat.’ You can tease me as much as you like but never leave me."

"Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you."