Rumi

If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.

Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.

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

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

We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.

That which is false troubles the heart, but truth brings joyous tranquility.

Tell everyone what you want to do and someone will want to help you do it.

Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it. It is golden not to have any rule at all in such a case.

A private Life is to be preferred; the Honor and Gain of publick Posts, bearing no proportion with the Comfort of it

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.

True genius resides in the capacity for evaluation of uncertain, hazardous, and conflicting information.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake . . . by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.

Silence is not always tact, but it is tact that is golden, not silence.

After a few months’ acquaintance with European coffee, one’s mind weakens, and his faith with it, and he begins to wonder if the rich beverage of home, with its clotted layer of yellow cream on top of it, is not a mere dream after all, and a thing which never existed.

Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know, I’ve done it a thousand times.

Say what you have to say and first time you come to a sentence with a grammatical ending; sit down.

The generative energy, which, when we are loose, dissipates and makes us unclean, when we are continent invigorates and inspires us. Chastity is the flowering of man; and what are called Genius, Heroism, Holiness, and the like, are but various fruits which succeed it.

Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.

Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion.