Skip to content

I am a painter, a maker of pictures; every moment I shape a beauteous form,
And then in thy presence I melt them all away.
I call up a hundred phantoms and endue them with a spirit
When I behold thy phantom, I cast them in the fire,
Art thou the vintner’s cup-bearer or the enemy of him who is sober,
Or is it thou who mak’st a ruin of every house I build?
In thee the soul is dissolved, with thee it is mingled,
So I will cherish the soul, because it has a perfume of thee.

— Rumi Attributed A Dictionary of Oriental Quotations (1911)

Another quote →

More quotes by Rumi

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

The lion who breaks the enemy's ranks is a minor hero compared to the lion who overcomes himself.

The branch might seem like the fruit's origin:
In fact, the branch exists because of the fruit.

If you wish to shine like day, burn up the night of self-existence. Dissolve in the Being who is everything.

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.

All Rumi quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Rumi (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.