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In all the world’s history, if there was one person who truly understood love it was probably Rumi. Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic who believed that universal love was the cornerstone of spiritual living — so much so that he wrote about it in nearly all his poems and talked about it in all his speeches. But he talked about more than that.

The words below contain some of the most incredible wisdom you’ve ever heard.

Never Give Up on Yourself

• “Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
• “When you go through a hard period when everything seems to oppose you, … When you feel you cannot even bear one more minute, NEVER GIVE UP! Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!”
• “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.”

Stop Acting so Small

• “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.”
• “You were born with potential. You were born with goodness and trust. You were born with ideals and dreams. You were born with greatness. You were born with wings. You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.”
• “You sit here for days saying, this is strange business. You’re the strange business. You have the energy of the sun in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine. You’re some weird kind of gold that wants to stay melted in the furnace so you won’t have to become coins.”

Live Your Life in a Way that Makes Sense to You, not to “Them”

• “Start a huge, foolish project, like Noah…it makes absolutely no difference what people think of you.”

The Real Treasure is Inside of You

• “You wander from room to room hunting for the diamond necklace that is already around your neck!”
• “Why are you so enchanted by this world, when a mine of gold lies within you?”
• “You go from village to village on your horse asking everyone, “Has anyone seen my horse?”
• “There is a fountain inside you. Don’t walk around with an empty bucket.”

Love is Worth it All

• “Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being. If not, leave this gathering.”
• “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.”

The wound is the place where the Light enters you.

• “What hurts you, blesses you. Darkness is your candle.”
• “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”
• “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”

The Truth is We’re All ONE.

• “All religions, all this singing, one song. The differences are just illusion and vanity. The sun’s light looks a little different on this wall than it does on that wall, and a lot different on this other one, but it’s still one light.”
• “What shall I say, O Muslims, I know not myself, I am neither a Christian, nor a Jew, nor a Zoroastrian, nor a Muslim.”

Your Soul is More Precious than Anything.

• “You know the value of every article of merchandise, but if you don’t know the value of your own soul, it’s all foolishness.”

Let Go of Who You Are and Become Who You Might Be

• “Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.”
• “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
• “Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.”

There is Something You can do Better than Anyone Else

• “Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.”

You don’t Have to Know the Path, just Take the First Step

• “As you start to walk out on the way, the way appears.”

Change Yourself and You Change the World

• “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

When you Commit to Something, do it with All Your Heart

• “When you do things from your soul you feel a river moving in you, a joy. When action comes from another section, the feeling disappears.”

Do what You Love and do it with Love

• “Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.”

Think Less, Feel More

• “Reason is powerless in the expression of Love.”
• “Put your thoughts to sleep, do not let them cast a shadow over the moon of your heart. Let go of thinking.”
• “There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?”

Raise Your Words, not Your Voice

• “Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.”

Silence Really is Golden

• “Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.”
• “Words are a pretext. It is the inner bond that draws one person to another, not words.”

Just to be Alive is not Enough

• “You think you are alive because you breathe air? Shame on you, that you are alive in such a limited way. Don’t be without love so you won’t feel dead. Die in Love and stay alive forever.”

Your Soul is not of this World, Your Body Is

• “All day I think about it, then at night, I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.”