Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī was a Persian sufi saint, poet and mystic.

His poetry has always resonated with me for a long time.

These are some of my favourite quotes of him.

Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

What you seek is seeking you.

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

Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.

The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.

The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.

Wherever you stand, be the soul of that place.

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

The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore.

The wound is where the light enters you.

The morning breeze has secrets to tell you. Do not go back to sleep.

I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within.

You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.

We come spinning out of nothingness, scattering stars like dust.

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

You were born with wings, why prefer to crawl through life?

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself.

Travel brings power and love back into your life.

Love is not a mere sentiment. It is the ultimate truth that lies at the heart of creation.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.

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

The heart is a thousand-stringed instrument that can only be tuned with love.

The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering.

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

The beauty you see in me is a reflection of you.

The rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorn.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.

Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do.

When I am with you, we stay up all night. When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.

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.

Don’t be the rider who gallops all night and never sees the horse that is beneath him.

A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.

The garden of the world has no limits, except in your mind.

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.

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

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?

The wound is where the light enters you.

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

I am yours. Don’t give myself back to me.

We are born of love; Love is our mother.

There is no salvation for the soul but to fall in love. Only lovers can escape out of these two worlds.

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.

I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways.

When the world pushes you to your knees, you’re in the perfect position to pray.

The soul has been given its own ears to hear things the mind does not understand.