Inside: The most incredible quotes and poems from Rumi about love and life.
Born in the 13th century, Rumi was a Persian poet whose words have transcended time. Today, over 700 years after his death, Rumi’s poems are widely circulated across the globe, having been translated into numerous languages. He is most popular for his spiritual influence and his deep reflections upon how love saturates us as human beings.
Rumi has published over 6,000 poems, amongst other works. His ideas about life unite humans as a species, and highlight how, though our lives are different, we all experience the same emotions, including joy, pain, love, and longing. Though his publications are nearly 1,000 years old, nearly everyone who reads them can relate to them in some way. That is the power of poetry!
Rumi Love Poems
Rumi’s poetry is infused with the mystifying feelings that arise when one loves another person with one’s whole heart. His poetry explores the dynamic nature of being in love, and how it can at times feel like the most natural, easy thing in the world, and at others, it can almost be agony.
1. A Moment of Happiness. This beautiful Rumi love poem portrays two lovers amidst the magic of nature, making the love between them feel as natural and beautiful as the earth.
2. A Gift to Bring You. Here, the speaker ponders over how difficult it can be to gift material items to someone who means the world to him. When another person’s love is a gift in itself, loving them back is the only real gift you can give them.
3. Do You Love Me? Passion is infused into this short Rumi poem, in which the speaker earnestly portrays loving someone so much that his own sense of self does not even matter. He exists purely for his love.
4. The Awakening Rumi’s short poem considers the happiness of true love an awakening from the rest of his life.
5. I Want to See You When you are first falling in love, it is wonderful. However, sometimes the best part is after you’ve known that person for a long time, and you love them so much that you are almost a part of them. These lines describe the desire for that feeling.
Rumi Poems About Life
A deeply spiritual man, Rumi highly valued his relationship with the earth and with other human beings. He believed that our spiritual connection to others is where we should seek happiness and satisfaction. In his writing, he hoped to help others live their lives free of worry, longing, or unnecessary self-inflicted pain. Through Rumi’s poems about life, he was able to capture the blissful simplicity of life and happiness.
6. The Guest House This Rumi poem about life is exploring the idea that we, as humans, have so much to learn from one another in our uniqueness.
7. Two Kinds of Intelligence People often talk about how to measure intelligence. The author of these words is expressing the nuanced thought that creativity is a prominent and important form of intelligence that should never be suppressed within us, but cultivated and celebrated.
8. Don’t Go Back to Sleep One of Rumi’s short poems, these few sentences are chilling. With this couplet, perhaps he is trying to warn us that life is short, and if we miss opportunities, we could miss valuable lessons.
9. A Community of the Spirit In this poem, a couplet reads, “Why do you stay in prison / when the door is so wide open?” The speaker is imploring the reader to take in all of the wonderful life that surrounds them, rather than focusing on all of the hardship that may happen.
Rumi Short Poems
10. “Why cling to one life
Till it is soil and ragged?
The sun dies and dies
Squandering a hundred lived
Every instant
God has decreed life for you
And He will give
Another and another and another.” —Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī
11. “You mustn’t be afraid of death
You’re a deathless soul
You can’t be kept in a dark grave
You’re filled with God’s glow
Be happy with your beloved
You can’t find any better
The world will shimmer
Because of the diamond you hold
When your heart is immersed
In this blissful love
You can easily endure
Any bitter face around
In the absence of malice
There is nothing but
Happiness and good times
Don’t dwell in sorrow my friend.” —Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī
12. “I choose to love you in silence…
For in silence I find no rejection,
I choose to love you in loneliness…
For in loneliness no one owns you but me,
I choose to adore you from a distance…
For distance will shield me from pain,
I choose to kiss you in the wind…
For the wind is gentler than my lips,
I choose to hold you in my dreams…
For in my dreams, you have no end.”—Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī
13. “You try to be faithful
And sometimes you’re cruel.
You are mine. Then, you leave.
Without you, I can’t cope.
And when you take the lead,
I become your footstep.
Your absence leaves a void.
Without you, I can’t cope.
You have disturbed my sleep,
You have wrecked my image.
You have set me apart.
Without you, I can’t cope.” —Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī
Famous Rumi Quotes
The widely-known Persian poet is famous for his thousands of poems, but he is mostly famous for his wisdom and his insight. He writes of the common experiences that humans go through, and of what it feels like to move through life, to grow, to hurt, and to discover new things. His words have long been nuggets of wisdom and advice for those suffering from loss, heartbreak, or confusion in their lives.
14. “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.”
15. “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.”
16. “Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.”
17. “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.”
18. “Take someone who doesn’t keep score, who’s not looking to be richer, or afraid of losing, who has not the slightest interest even in his own personality: he’s free.”
19. “When your heart becomes the grave of your secrets, that desire of yours will be gained more quickly. The prophet said that anyone who keeps secret his inmost thought will soon attain the object of his desire. When seeds are buried in the earth, their inward secrets become the flourishing garden.”
20. “Study me as much as you like, you will not know me, for I differ in a hundred ways from what you see me to be. Put yourself behind my eyes and see me as I see myself, for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.”
More Impactful Poems You’ll Love
Sharing and writing poetry has been an emotional outlet for human beings for thousands of years. It is a form of creativity that allows us to express and explore our most complex emotions, and to connect with one another.
- Impactful Wolf Poems. Wolves have shown up in human art for thousands of years. They are mysterious and heroic to us, portrayed as strong and powerful creatures. Interestingly, we tend to project our feelings into art about wolves. Some of these poems cast wolves as fiercely independent, solitary creatures — the lone wolf. In other poems, however, wolves are written as part of tight-knit packs, and as lessons in loyalty and bravery.
