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Rumi

Jalal al-Din Muhammad Rumi (جلال‌الدین محمد رومی) Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi (جلال‌الدین محمد بلخى) (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273) was an Afghan philosopher, theologian, poet, teacher, and founder of the Mevlevi (or Mawlawi) order of Sufism; also known as Mevlana (Our Guide), Jalaluddin Rumi, or simply Rumi.

Quotes

 * Love is the ark appointed for the righteous, Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape. Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.
 * The Masnavi, Book IV, Story II, as translated in Masnavi I Ma'navi : The Spiritual Couplets of Maulána Jalálu-'d-Dín Muhammad Rúmí (1898) by Edward Henry Whinfield
 * Variant: Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment is intuition.
 * As quoted in The Perennial Philosophy (1945) by Aldous Huxley

 * پيل اندر خانه يي تاريک بود عرضه را آورده بودندش هنود از براي ديدنش مردم بسي اندر آن ظلمت همي شد هر کسي ديدنش با چشم چون ممکن نبود اندر آن تاريکي اش کف مي بسود آن يکي را کف به خرطوم اوفتاد گفت همچون ناودان است اين نهاد آن يکي را کف بر گوشش رسيد آن بر او چون بادبيزن شد پديد آن يکي را کف بر پايش بسود گفت شکل پيل ديدم چون عمود آن يکي بر پشت او بنهاد دست گفت خود اين پيل چون تختي بُدست هم چنين هر يک به جزوي که رسيد فهم آن مي کرد هر جا مي شنيد از نظرگه گفتشان شد مختلف آن يکي دالش لقب داد اين الف در کف هر کس اگر شمعي بدي اختلاف از گفتشان بيرون شدي چشم حس همچون کف دست است و بس نيست کف را بر همة او دسترس کف ديگر هست و دريا دگر کف رها کن از سر دريا نگر
 * Masnavi-I Ma'navi, Book III, verses 1259–1270
 * Some Hindoos were exhibiting an elephant in a dark room, and many people collected to see it. But as the place was too dark to permit them to see the elephant, they all felt it with their hands, to gain an idea of what it was like. One felt its trunk, and declared that the beast resembled a water-pipe; another felt its ear, and said it must be a large fan; another its leg, and thought it must be a pillar; another felt its back, and declared the beast must be like a great throne. According to the part which each felt, he gave a different description of the animal. One, as it were, called it "Dal" and another "Alif." If you give a candle to everyone, their differences will be gone, Compare the sensual eye to the hand of one that felt the elephant. The eye of outward sense is as the palm of a hand, The whole of the object is not grasped in the palm. The sea itself is one thing, the foam another; Neglect the foam, and regard the sea with your eyes.
 * The Masnavi, Book III, Story V, as translated in Masnavi I Ma'navi : The Spiritual Couplets of Maulána Jalálu-'d-Dín Muhammad Rúmí (1898) by Edward Henry Whinfield

 * Reason is like an officer when the King appears; The officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun.
 * As translated in Masnavi I Ma'navi : The Spiritual Couplets of Maulána Jalálu-'d-Dín Muhammad Rúmí (1898) edited by Edward Henry Whinfield Book IV, Story IV : "Bayazid and his impious sayings when beside himself"

There is light and wine, and sweethearts in the pomegranate flowers. If you do not come, these do not matter. If you do come, these do not matter.
 * Come to the orchard in Spring.

 * This is what is signified by the words Anā l-Ḥaqq, "I am God." People imagine that it is a presumptuous claim, whereas it is really a presumptuous claim to say Ana 'l-'abd, "I am the slave of God"; and Anā l-Ḥaqq, "I am God" is an expression of great humility. The man who says Ana 'l-'abd, "I am the servant of God" affirms two existences, his own and God's, but he that says Anā l-Ḥaqq, "I am God" has made himself non-existent and has given himself up and says "I am God", that is, "I am naught, He is all; there is no being but God's." This is the extreme of humility and self-abasement.
 * Commenting on the famous expression of Mansur al-Hallaj, for which al-Hallaj was executed as a blasphemer, in The Mathnawí of Jalálu'ddín Rúmí, Vol. 4, part 7, edited by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (1940) p. 248
 * Variant translation: People imagine that it is a presumptive claim, whereas it is really a presumptive claim to say "I am the slave of God"; and "I am God" is an expression of great humility. The man who says "I am the slave of God" affirms two existences, his own and God's, but he that says "I am God" has made himself non-existent and has given himself up and says "I am God", that is, "I am naught, He is all; there is no being but God's." This is the extreme of humility and self-abasement.

 * Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more — more unseen forms become manifest to him.
 * As quoted in The Sufi Path of Love : The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi (1983) by William C. Chittick, p. 162

 * I died as a mineral and became a plant, I died as plant and rose to animal, I died as animal and I was Man. Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?  Yet once more I shall die as Man, to soar With angels blest; but even from angelhood I must pass on: all except God doth perish. When I have sacrificed my angel-soul, I shall become what no mind e'er conceived. Oh, let me not exist! for Non-existence Proclaims in organ tones, To Him we shall return.
 * "I Died as a Mineral", as translated in The Mystics of Islam (1914) edited by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, p. 125
 * Variant translation: Originally, you were clay. From being mineral, you became vegetable. From vegetable, you became animal, and from animal, man. During these periods man did not know where he was going, but he was being taken on a long journey nonetheless. And you have to go through a hundred different worlds yet.
 * As quoted in Multimind (1986) by Robert Ornstein

 * Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving — it doesn't matter, Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times, Come, come again, come.
 * As quoted in Sunbeams : A Book of Quotations (1990) by Sy Safransky, p. 67
 * Variant translations: Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, idolator, worshipper of fire, come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times, Come, and come yet again. Ours is not a caravan of despair.
 * As quoted in Muslim Narratives and the Discourse of English (2004) by Amin Malak, p. 151
 * Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, worshipper, lover of living, it doesn't matter Ours is not a caravan of despair. Come even if you have broken your vow a thousand times, Come, yet again, come, come.
 * As quoted in Rumi and His Sufi Path of Love (2007) by M Fatih Citlak and Huseyin Bingul, p. 81
 * Come, come again, whoever you are, come! Heathen, fire worshipper or idolatrous, come! Come even if you broke your penitence a hundred times, Ours is the portal of hope, come as you are.
 * As quoted in Turkey: A Primary Source Cultural Guide (2004) by Martha Kneib
 * This poem is wrongly considered to be Rumi's work, where it is actually from Abū-Sa'īd Abul-Khayr. The original poem in Farsi is
 * باز آ باز آ هر آنچه هستی باز آ گر کافر و گبر و بت‌پرستی باز آ  این درگه ما درگه نومیدی نیست  صد بار اگر توبه شکستی باز آ

 * Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo, whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of more invisible game. Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo. You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate. There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom. At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding." You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up in the dark with eyes closed. Listen to the answer. There is no "other world." I only know what I've experienced. You must be hallucinating.
 * As quoted in The Enlightened Mind (1991), edited by Stephen Mitchell

 * Our caravan leader is the pride of the world, Mustafa [Muhammad]
 * As quoted in And Muhammad is his Messenger : The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety (1985) by Annemarie Schimmel, p. 215

 * Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.
 * As quoted in Marry Your Muse : Making a Lasting Commitment to Your Creativity (1997) by Jan Phillips, p. 75

 * I am so happy, I cannot be contained in the world; But like a spirit, I am hidden from the eyes of the world. If the foot of the trees were not tied to earth, they would be pursuing me; For I have blossomed so much, I am the envy of the gardens.
 * Divan 1740:1-3, as translated by Fatemeh Keshavarz in Reading Mystical Lyric : The Case of Jalal al-Din Rumi (1998)

 * The men of God are like fishes in the ocean; they pop up into view on the surface here and there and everywhere, as they please.
 * As quoted in "A feather on the breath of God" by Nur Elmessiri in Al-Ahram Weekly Online Issue No. 385 (9 - 15 July 1998)

 * He whose intellect overcomes his desire is higher than the angels; he whose desire overcomes his intellect is less than an animal.
 * As quoted in The Rumi Collection : An Anthology of Translations of Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi (2000) by Kabir Helminski

 * The fault is in the one who blames. Spirit sees nothing to criticize.
 * As quoted in Rumi Wisdom: Daily Teachings from the Great Sufi Master (2000) by Timothy Freke
 * Variant: The fault is in the blamer — Spirit sees nothing to criticize.

 * Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.
 * As quoted in Path for Greatness : Spiritualty at Work (2000) by Linda J. Ferguson, p. 51

 * He says, "There’s nothing left of me. I’m like a ruby held up to the sunrise. Is it still a stone, or a world made of redness? It has no resistance to sunlight." This is how Hallaj said, I am God, and told the truth!  The ruby and the sunrise are one.  Be courageous and discipline yourself. Completely become hearing and ear, and wear this sun-ruby as an earring.
 * As quoted in Head and Heart : A Personal Exploration of Science and the Sacred (2002) by Victor Mansfield

 * I want a heart which is split, part by part, because of the pain of separation from God, so that I might explain my longing and complaint to it.
 * As quoted in "Mevlana Jalal al-Din Rumi" by Fethullah Gülen in The Fountain #24 (July-September 2004)
 * Variant translation: I want a heart which is split, chamber by chamber, by the pain of separation from God, so that I might explain my longings and desires to it.

 * The Sufi is hanging on to Muhammad, like Abu Bakr.
 * As quoted in Rumi and Islam: Selections from His Stories, Poems, and Discourses — Annotated and Explained (2004) by Ibrahim Gamard p. 171

 * I am the servant of the Qur'an as long as I have life. I am the dust on the path of [Muhammad], the Chosen one. If anyone quotes anything except this from my sayings, I am quit of him and outraged by these words
 * As quoted in "Rumi and Self-Discovery" by Ibrahim Gamard, in Islamica Magazine Issue 15, (Summer 2005)

 * You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?
 * As quoted in Wisdom for the Soul : Five Millennia of Prescriptions for Spiritual Healing (2006) by Larry Chang, p. 26

 * Whoever enters the Way without a guide will take a hundred years to travel a two-day journey. The Prophet said "In this way you have no more faithful companion than your works." How can these works and this earning in the way of righteousness be accomplished without a master, O father? Can you practice the meanest profession in the world without a master's guidance? Whoever undertakes a profession without a master becomes the laughingstock of city and town.
 * Mathnavi translated by William Chittick pp. 122-123 as quoted in Classical Islam and Naqshbandi Sufi Tradition by Muhammad Hisham Kabbani p. 153

 * We have a way from this visible world to the Unseen, For we are the companions of Religions Messenger. We have a way from the house to the garden, we are the neighbor of the cypress and jasmine. Every day we come to the garden and see a hundred blossoms. In order to scatter them among the lovers, we will our robes to overflowing. Behold our words! They are the fragrance of those roses - we are the rosebush of certainty's rose garden.
 * Divan as quoted in Classical Islam and the Naqshbandi Sufi Tradition By Muhammad Hisham Kabbani p.195

 * I have endowed everyone with a temperament of his own, given everyone an idiom of his own; so that what is praise for him is blame for thee, what is honey for him is poison for thee, what is light for him is fire for thee, what is rose for him is thorn for thee, what is good for him is evil for thee, what is beautiful for him is ugly for thee. In the people of Hindustan the idiom of Hindustan is praiseworthy; in the people of Sind, the idiom of Sind is praiseworthy. I do not see the outward and the speech; I see the inward and the state [of feeling]. For the heart is the substance and speech an accident. So, the accident is subservient, the substance is the [real] object. The religion of love stands apart from all religions. For lovers the [only] religion and creed is God.
 * Rumi, quoted from Harsh Narain, Myths of Composite Culture and Equality of Religions (1990) p. 20-21

Rumi Daylight (1990)

 * Rumi Daylight: A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance (1990) translations by Camille Adams Helminsk and Kabir Helminski

 * 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.

 * This discipline and rough treatment are a furnace to extract the silver from the dross. This testing purifies the gold by boiling the scum away.

 * Fortunate is he who does not carry envy as a companion.

 * The idol of your self is the mother of all idols. To regard the self as easy to subdue is a mistake.

 * If you wish mercy, show mercy to the weak.

 * If you dig a pit for others to fall into, you will fall into it yourself.

 * Many of the faults you see in others, dear reader, are your own nature reflected in them.

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

 * Whoever gives reverence receives reverence.

 * Were there no men of vision, all who are blind would be dead.

 * If you are wholly perplexed and in straits, have patience, for patience is the key to joy.

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

 * Anyone in whom the troublemaking self has died, sun and cloud obey. If you wish to shine like day, burn up the night of self-existence. Dissolve in the Being who is everything.

 * There is no worse sickness for the soul, O you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection. The heart and eyes must bleed a lot before self-complacency falls away.

 * When the remedy you have offered only increases the disease, then leave him who will not be cured, and tell your story to someone who seeks the truth.

Jewels of Remembrance (1996)

 * Jewels of Remembrance : A Daybook of Spiritual Guidance : Containing 365 Selections from the Wisdom of Rumi (1996) Translated by Camille and Kabir Helminski

 * Are you fleeing from Love because of a single humiliation? What do you know of Love except the name? Love has a hundred forms of pride and disdain, and is gained by a hundred means of persuasion. Since Love is loyal, it purchases one who is loyal: it has no interest in a disloyal companion. The human being resembles a tree; its root is a covenant with God: that root must be cherished with all one's might.

 * Come, seek, for search is the foundation of fortune: every success depends upon focusing the heart.
 * III, 2302-5

 * Even though you're not equipped, keep searching: equipment isn't necessary on the way to the Lord.
 * III, 1445-49

 * If an ant seeks the rank of Solomon, don't smile contemptuously upon its quest. Everything you possess of skill, and wealth and handicraft, wasn't it first merely a thought and a quest?
 * III, 1445-49

 * When you see anyone complaining of such and such a person's ill-nature and bad temper, know that the complainant is bad-tempered, forasmuch as he speaks ill of that bad-tempered person, because he alone is good-tempered who is quietly forbearing towards the bad-tempered and ill-natured.
 * IV, 771-4

 * That which God said to the rose, and caused it to laugh in full-blown beauty, He said to my heart, and made it a hundred times more beautiful.
 * III, 4129

 * Many have been led astray by the Qur'an: by clinging to that rope many have fallen into the well. There is no fault in the rope, O perverse man, for it was you who had no desire to reach the top.
 * III, 4210-11

Essential Sufism (1997)

 * Essential Sufism (1997) by James Fadiman and Robert Frager

 * If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it.

 * The lower self does not want anyone to receive anything from anybody else, and if it is aware of something receiving a special boon, it seeks to destroy it.

 * Whatever posessions and objects of its desires the lower self may obtain, it hangs on to them, refusing to let them go out of greed for more, or out of fear of poverty and need.

Hush Don't Say Anything to God (1999)

 * Hush Don't Say Anything to God : Passionate Poems of Rumi (1999) as translated by Shahram Shiva

 * To Love is to reach God. Never will a Lover's chest feel any sorrow. Never will a Lover's robe be touched by mortals. Never will a Lover's body be found buried in the earth. To Love is to reach God.

 * When in Love, body, mind, heart and soul don't even exist.

 * Love rests on no foundation. It is an endless ocean, with no beginning or end.

 * They will ask you what you have produced. Say to them, except for Love, what else can a Lover produce?

 * My head is bursting with the joy of the unknown. My heart is expanding a thousand fold. Every cell, taking wings, flies about the world. All seek separately the many faces of my Beloved.

 * There is a certain cloud, impregnated with a thousand lightnings. There is my body, in it an ocean formed of his glory, all the creation, all the universes, all the galaxies, are lost in it.

 * I always thought that I was me — but no, I was you and never knew it.

 * This is a gathering of Lovers. In this gathering there is no high, no low, no smart, no ignorant, no special assembly, no grand discourse, no proper schooling required. There is no master, no disciple. This gathering is more like a drunken party, full of tricksters, fools, mad men and mad women. This is a gathering of Lovers.

 * Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.

 * I don't know where I am. At times I plunge to the bottom of the sea, at times, rise up like the Sun. At times, the universe is pregnant by me, at times I give birth to it.

 * A hundred souls cried out, but we are yours, we are yours, we are yours. You are the light that spoke to Moses and said I am God, I am God, I am God. I said Shams-e Tabrizi, who are you? He said, I am you, I am you, I am you.

 * Even if you lose yourself in wrath for a hundred thousand years, at the end you will discover, it is me, who is the culmination of your dreams.

 * Didn't I tell you not to be satisfied with the veil of this world? I am the master illusionist, it is me, who is the welcoming banner at the gate of your contentment.

 * Didn't I tell you? I am an ocean, you are a fish; do not go to the dry land, it is me, who is your comforting body of water.

 * Didn't I tell you? They will accuse you of all the wrongdoings, they will call you ugly names, they will make you forget it is me, who is the source of your happiness.

Teachings of Rumi (1999)

 * Quotes from Teachings of Rumi (1999), as translated by Andrew Harvey

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

'''Drunkards vaunt their bravery when you speak of war. But in the blaze of battle they scatter like mice. I'm astonished by the man who wants purity And yet trembles when the harshness of polishing begin... When a man beats a carpet again and again It's not the carpet he's attacking, but the dirt in it.'''
 * "There's no courage", The Prophet said, "before the war has begun."
 * Mathnawi

Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi (2000)

 * Hush, Don't Say Anything to God: Passionate Poems of Rumi (2000) as translated by Shahram Shiva

 * Love is best when mixed with anguish.
 * In our town,
 * we won't call you a Lover
 * if you escape the pain.
 * Look for Love in this way,
 * welcome it to your soul,
 * and watch you spirit fly away in ecstasy.

 * I am so drunk
 * I have lost the way in
 * and the way out.
 * I have lost the earth, the moon, and the sky.
 * Don't put another cup of wine in my hand,
 * pour it in my mouth,
 * for I have lost the way to my mouth.

 * Everyday my heart falls deeper in the pain of your sorrow.
 * Your cruel heart is weary of me already.
 * You have left me alone, yet your sorrow remains.
 * Truly your sorrow is more faithful than you are

The Quatrains of Rumi (2008)

 * The Quatrains of Rumi (2008) as translated by Ibrahim Gamard and Rawan Farhadi

 * Love is the path and road of our Prophet
 * We were born from Love and Love was our mother.
 * O you who are our mother, you are hidden within veils,
 * Concealed from our disbelieving natures
 * "The States of the Lover", p. 456

 * The fire of Love cooks me
 * Every night it drags me to the Tavern.
 * It seats me with the People of the Tavern
 * So that no one except the People of the Tavern will know me.
 * "The States of the Lover", p. 458

 * By eating meagerly, you become clever and aware.
 * And by eating gluttonously, you become foolish and idle.
 * Your being full of misery is entirely from your gluttony.
 * You will become less miserable if you become a sparse eater.
 * "Advice to the Disciple and Aspirant" p. 507

 * If you dwell with unaware people, you will be cold,
 * But if you dwell with aware ones, you will be a true man
 * Go, and build your hermit cell inside a furnace, like gold
 * If you go out of the furnace, you will be frozen solid
 * "Advice to the Disciple and Aspirant", p. 516

 * Dwell in the place where your companions are spiritual heroes,
 * So that they may wash the foul soot from your [heart]
 * Don't think about their faults, for they
 * Will know about it before you think.
 * "Advice to the Disciple and Aspirant" p. 527

The Essential Rumi (1995)

 * The Essential Rumi (1995) translated by with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry and . Barks does not speak or read Persian; his 'translations' are therefore technically s and have been criticised by many scholars. Barks bases his paraphrases entirely on other English translations of Rumi which include renderings by Moyne and Nicholson.

 * 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.
 * "Who says words with my mouth?" in Ch. 1 : The Tavern, p. 2

 * Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home.
 * "Who says words with my mouth?" in Ch. 1 : The Tavern, p. 2

 * This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say. I don't plan it. When I'm outside the saying of it, I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
 * "Who says words with my mouth?" in Ch. 1 : The Tavern, p. 2

 * There is a community of the spirit Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street, and being the noise.
 * "A Community of the Spirit" in Ch. 1 : The Tavern, p. 2

 * Quit acting like a wolf, and feel the shepherd's love filling you.
 * "A Community of the Spirit" in Ch. 1 : The Tavern, p. 2

 * Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.
 * "A Community of the Spirit" in Ch. 1 : The Tavern, p. 2

 * What is the body? That shadow of a shadow of your love, that somehow contains the entire universe.
 * "Where are we?" in Ch. 2 : Bewilderment

 * Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about language, ideas, even the phrase each other doesn't make any sense.
 * "The Great Wagon" Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 36
 * Variant translations: Between wrongness and rightness there is a field. I will meet you there.
 * As quoted in Counselling Psychology : Integration of Theory, Research and Supervised Practice (1998) by Petruska Clarkson
 * Out beyond the world of ideas of wrong doing and right doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.
 * As quoted in Lightning in a Bottle : Proven Lessons for Leading Change (2000) by David H. Baum
 * Out beyond ideas of right and wrong doing, there is a field. I will meet you there.
 * As quoted in Architects of Peace : Visions of Hope in Words and Images (2002) by Michael Collopy, p. 109
 * Out beyond ideas of rightdoing and wrongdoing There is a field. I will meet you there.
 * Strategic Learning in a Knowledge Economy : Individual, Collective and Organizational Learning Processes (2000) by Robert L. Cross and Sam B. Israelit

 * Spring is Christ, Raising martyred plants from their shrouds. Their mouths open in gratitude, wanting to be kissed. The glow of the rose and the tulip means a lamp is inside. A leaf trembles. I tremble in the wind-beauty like silk from Turkestan. The censer fans into flame. This wind is the Holy Spirit. The trees are Mary.
 * "Spring is Christ" in Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 37

 * We talk about this and that. There’s no rest except on these branching moments.
 * "Spring is Christ" in Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 38

 * There is no reality but God, says the completely surrendered sheik, who is an ocean for all beings.
 * "The Grasses" in Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 44

 * Disputational knowing wants customers. It has no soul.
 * "The Sheikh who played with the Children" in Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 46

 * Let the lover be disgraceful, crazy, absent-minded. Someone sober will worry about events going badly. Let the lover be.
 * Ch. 4 : Spring Giddiness, p. 46

 * I can't stop pointing to the beauty. Every moment and place says, "Put this design in your carpet!"
 * "Put This Design in Your Carpet" Ch. 11 : Union

 * From Hallaj, I learned to hunt lions, but I became something hungrier than a lion.
 * "Hallaj" Ch. 11 : Union

 * This dance is the joy of existence. I am filled with you. Skin, blood, bone, brain, and soul. There's no room for lack of trust, or trust. Nothing in this existence but that existence.
 * "We Three" Ch. 11 : Union

 * The place that Solomon made to worship in, called the Far Mosque, is not built of earth and water and stone, but of intention and wisdom and mystical conversation and compassionate action.
 * "The Far Mosque" in Ch. 17 : Solomon Poems, p. 191

 * This heart sanctuary does exist, but it can't be described. Why try! Solomon goes there every morning and gives guidance with words, with musical harmonies, and in actions, which are the deepest teaching. A prince is just a conceit until he does something with generosity.
 * "The Far Mosque" in Ch. 17 : Solomon Poems, p. 191

 * Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being.
 * "On Gambling" Ch. 18 : The Three Fish, p. 193

 * Do not believe in an absurdity no matter who says it.
 * "The Three Fish" Ch. 18 : The Three Fish, p. 196

 * Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river. When the ocean is searching for you, don't walk into the language-river. Listen to the ocean, and bring your talky business to an end  Traditional words are just babbling in that presence, and babbling is a substitute for sight.
 * "The Three Fish" Ch. 18 : The Three Fish, p. 196
 * Variant translations or adaptations:
 * Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.
 * As quoted in Teachers of Wisdom (2010) by Igor Kononenko, p. 134
 * Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river. Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.
 * As quoted in "Rumi’s wisdom" (2 October 2015), by Paulo Coelho

 * Every object and being in the universe is a jar overflowing with wisdom and beauty, a drop of the Tigris that cannot be contained by any skin. Every jarful spills and makes the earth more shining, as though covered in satin.
 * "The Gift of Water" Ch. 18 : The Three Fish, p. 200

 * You knock at the door of Reality. You shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.
 * "The Gift of Water" Ch. 18 : The Three Fish, p. 200

 * Christ is the population of the world, and every object as well. There is no room for hypocrisy. Why use bitter soup for healing when sweet water is everywhere?
 * Ch. 19 : Jesus Poems, p. 204

 * Lovers think they are looking for each other, but there is only one search: wandering This world is wandering that, both inside one transparent sky. In here there is no dogma and no heresy.
 * Ch. 19 : Jesus Poems, p. 205

 * The miracle of Jesus is himself, not what he said or did about the future. Forget the future. I'd worship someone who could do that.
 * Ch. 19 : Jesus Poems, p. 205

 * The cure for pain is in the pain. Good and bad are mixed. If you don't have both, you don't belong with us.
 * Ch. 19 : Jesus Poems

depends on my going away, so that when I've gone and come back, I'll find it at home.
 * It may be that the satisfaction I need
 * "In Baghdad, Dreaming of Cairo: In Cairo, Dreaming of Baghdad." Ch. 20 : In Baghdad, Dreaming of Cairo: More Teaching Stories, p. 206

 * Learn from Ali how to fight without your ego participating. God's lion did nothing that didn't originate from his deep center.
 * "Ali in Battle" an account of Ali ibn Abi Talib's explanation as to why he declined to kill someone who had spit in his face as Ali was defeating him in battle, in Ch. 20 : In Baghdad dreaming of Cairo

 * I am God's Lion, not the lion of passion.... I have no longing except for the One. When a wind of personal reaction comes, I do not go along with it. There are many winds full of anger, and lust and greed. They move the rubbish around, but the solid mountain of our true nature stays where it's always been.
 * "Ali in Battle" in Ch. 20 : In Baghdad dreaming of Cairo

 * This that we are now created the body, cell by cell, like bees building a honeycomb. The human body and the universe grew from this, not this from the universe and the human body.
 * "This We Have Now" in Ch. 25 : Majesty. p. 262

 * Do not grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
 * "Unmarked boxes" /Ode#1937

Not yet sourced by chapter:

 * Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still.

 * God's joy moved from unmarked box to unmarked box, from cell to cell.

 * Observe the wonders as they occur around you. Don't claim them. Feel the artistry moving through, and be silent.

Misattributed

 * 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.
 * Helen Schucman in A Course in Miracles (1976) by Helen Schucman and William Thetford, Ch. 16 The Forgiveness of Illusions, p. 338,#6.
 * Whenever we manage to love without expectations, calculations, negotiations, we are indeed in heaven.
 * "The Forty Rules of Love" (2010) by Elif Şafak (The book is about Rumi, but the quote is the author's own words)
 * Study me as much as you like, you will never know me, for I differ 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.
 * Frequently quoted on social media, but was not written by Rumi in Persian.
 * We carry inside us the wonders we seek outside us.
 * Frequently quoted on social media, but appears to be a misquote of Thomas Browne's "We carry within us the wonders we seek without us: there is all Africa and her prodigies in us" in Religio Medici (1643) pt. 1, sect. 15.

 * Before you speak, let your words pass through 3 gates; Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?
 * Various sources attribute this saying to Rumi, although never to a specific work or correspondence. It may be a misquote of Sathya Sai Baba, a 20th century guru

Quotes about Rumi

 * Strange as it may seem to our Western egoism, the prospect of sharing in the general, impersonal immortality of the human soul kindles in the Sufi an enthusiasm as deep and triumphant as that of the most ardent believer in a personal life continuing beyond the grave. Jalaluddin, after describing the evolution of man in the material world and anticipating his further growth in the spiritual universe, utters a heartfelt prayer — for what? — for self-annihilation in the ocean of the Godhead.
 * Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, in The Mystics of Islam (1914) edited by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, p. 124

 * The idea that eroticism and spirituality should be separated is a travesty of both...Or read the great Persian poet Rumi...All mystical poetry is erotic, uses erotic language, because it desires fusion with God...all lovers see the beloved’s face and body as divine.
 * Alicia Ostriker Interview

Also See

 * Allama Iqbal
 * Muhammad Ali Jinnah
 * Afghanistan
 * Pakistan
 * Mir Taqi Mir
 * Ghandi

title: Rumi


text:
Lin Yutang

Lin Yutang (Traditional Chinese: 林語堂; Simplified Chinese: 林语堂; pinyin: Lín Yǔtáng) (10 October 1895 – 26 March 1976) was a Chinese writer and translator.

 * See also: Moment in Peking

Quotes

 * I like to think of criticism as the highest intellectual effort that mankind is capable of, and above all, I like to think of self-criticism as the most difficult attainment of an educated man.
 * "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time", in The China Critic, Vol. III, no. 4 (23 January 1930), p. 81

 * I am here to speak on freedom of speech. It is a great topic, and I am going to make my speech as free as possible. But you know that this cannot be done, for when anyone announces that he is going to speak his mind freely, everyone is frightened. This shows that there is no such thing as true freedom of speech. No one can afford to let his neighbors know what he is thinking about them. Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.
 * "Of Freedom of Speech", lecture given in China (4 March 1933)

 * All women's dresses, in every age and country, are merely variations on the eternal struggle between the admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress.
 * In Vogue, as quoted by The Reader's Digest, Vols. 30–31 (1937), p. 69

 * Human history is not the product of the wise direction of human reason, but is shaped by the forces of emotion—our dreams, our pride, our greed, our fears, and our desire for revenge.
 * Confucius Saw Nancy and Essays about Nothing (1936), p. 95

 * No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.
 * "A Trip to Anhwei", in With Love And Irony (1940), p. 145

 * The Chinese believe that when there are too many policemen, there can be no individual liberty, when there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice, and when there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace.
 * Between Tears And Laughter (1943), p. 71. Variant: "When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty. When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace. When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice.", as quoted in The World's Funniest Laws (2005) by James Alexander, ISBN 1905102100, p. 6.

 * If compelled to indicate my religion on an immigration blank, I might be tempted to put down the word "Taoist," to the amazement of the customs officer who probably never heard of it.
 * The Wisdom of Laotse (1948), Introduction, p. 15

 * Our task is not so much discovery as re-discovery. What one needs is not so much thinking as remembering. Sometimes it suffices to sit quietly and listen well, when venerable men have thought before us. Constant forgettings of truths once perceived are the very charm of the human mind; the history of human thought is nothing more than the story of these forgettings and rememberings and forgettings again.
 * On the Wisdom of America (1950), p. xiv

 * If life is all subjective, why not be subjectively happy rather than subjectively sad?
 * On the Wisdom of America (1950), p. 155

 * There are two kinds of animals on earth. One kind minds his own business, the other minds other people's business. The former are vegetarians, like cows, sheep and thinking men. The latter are carnivorous, like hawks, tigers and men of action.
 * As quoted by Tai-yi Lin (Lin Yutang's daughter) in her Foreword (26 March 1950) to The Importance of Living, p. x

 * The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach.
 * As quoted in Remarks of Famous People (1965) by Jacob Morton Braude, p. 23

 * These influences of my young childhood were greatest: 1, the mountain landscape, 2, my father the impossible idealist, and 3, the upringing of a closely-knit Christian home.
 * Memoirs of an Octogenarian (1975), pp. 8–9

 * Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.
 * As quoted in Pearls of Wisdom: A Harvest of Quotations From All Ages (1987) by Jerome Agel and Walter D. Glanze, p. 46. From The Importance of Living: "besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a nobler art of leaving things undone" (p. 162), "the wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials" (p. 10).

 * When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set.
 * As quoted in Hard-to-Solve Cryptograms (2001) by Derrick Niederman, p. 96

 * The creative imagination of the Hindus has conceived no loftier and holier character than Sita; the literature of the world  has not produced a higher ideal of womanly love, womanly truth, and  womanly devotion.
 * The Wisdom Of China And India by  ) Lin Yutang

 * I strongly suspect that the average reader does not suspect India has as rich a culture, as creative an imagination and wit and humor as any China has to offer, and that India was China’s teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world’s teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian Nights, animal fables, chess, as well as in philosophy, and that she inspired Boccaccio, Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and probably also old Aesop.
 * The Wisdom Of China And India by  ) Lin Yutang

My Country and My People (1935)

 * A mellow understanding of life and of human nature is, and always has been, the Chinese ideal of character, and from that understanding other qualities are derived, such as pacifism, contentment, calm and strength of endurance which distinguish the Chinese character.
 * p. 43

 * To the West, it seems hardly imaginable that the relationship between man and man (which is morality) could be maintained without reference to a Supreme Being, while to the Chinese it is equally amazing that men should not, or could not, behave toward one another as decent beings without thinking of their indirect relationship through a third party.
 * p. 106

 * I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.
 * Epilogue, p. 328

The Importance of Living (1937)

 * This is a personal testimony, a testimony of my own experience of thought and life. It is not intended to be objective and makes no claim to establish eternal truths. In fact I rather despise claims to objectivity in philosophy; the point of view is the thing. I should have liked to call it "A Lyrical Philosophy," using the word "lyrical" in the sense of being a highly personal and individual outlook...
 * Preface

 * It is not when he is working in the office but when he is lying idly on the sand that his soul utters, "Life is beautiful."
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 2

 * While in the West, the insane are so many that they are put in an asylum, in China the insane are so unusual that we worship them, as anybody who has a knowledge of Chinese literature will testify.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 3

 * A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 4

 * It is important that man dreams, but it is perhaps equally important that he can laugh at his own dreams.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, pp. 4–5

 * I distrust all dead and mechanical formulas for expressing anything connected with human affairs and human personalities. Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of the sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 5

 * It is not so much what you believe in that matters, as the way in which you believe it and proceed to translate that belief into action.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 8

 * My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12

 * I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 12

 * I do not think that any civilization can be called complete until it has progressed from sophistication to unsophistication, and made a conscious return to simplicity of thinking and living, and I call no man wise until he has made the progress from the wisdom of knowledge to the wisdom of foolishness, and become a laughing philosopher, feeling first life's tragedy and then life's comedy. For we must weep before we can laugh. Out of sadness comes the awakening, and out of the awakening comes the laughter of the philosopher, with kindliness and tolerance to boot.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13

 * The world I believe is far too serious, and being far too serious, is it has need of a wise and merry philosophy.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13

 * To me personally, the only function of philosophy is to teach us to take life more lightly and gayly than the average businessman does, for no businessman who does not retire at fifty, if he can, is in my eyes a philosopher.
 * Ch. I : The Awakening, p. 13

 * All men and women have passions, natural desires and noble ambitions, and also a conscience; they have sex, hunger, fear, anger, and are subject to sickness, pain, suffering and death. Culture consists in bringing about the expression of these passions and desires in harmony.
 * p. 20

 * A reasonable naturalist then settles down to this life with a sort of animal satisfaction. As Chinese illiterate women put it, "Others gave birth to us and we give birth to others. What else are we to do?".... Life becomes a biological procession and the very question of immortality is sidetracked. For that is the exact feeling of a Chinese grandfather holding his grandchild by the hand and going to the shops to buy some candy, with the thought that in five or ten years he will be returning to his grave or to his ancestors. The best that we can hope for in this life is that we shall not have sons and grandsons of whom we need to be ashamed.
 * p. 23

 * One can learn such a lot and enjoy such a lot in seventy years, and three generations is a long, long time to see human follies and acquire human wisdom. Anyone who is wise and has lived long enough to witness the changes of fashion and morals and politics through the rise and fall of three generations should be perfectly satisfied to rise from his seat and go away saying, "It was a good show," when the curtain falls.
 * p. 23-24

 * Human life can be lived like a poem.
 * p. 32

 * Instead of holding on to the Biblical view that we are made in the image of God, we come to realize that we are made in the image of the monkey.
 * p. 36

 * A man may own a thousand acres of land, and yet he still sleeps upon a bed of five feet.
 * p. 38 (Chinese saying)

 * He who perceives death perceives a sense of the human comedy, and quickly becomes a poet.
 * pp. 39–40

 * What is patriotism but love of the good things we ate in our childhood? I have said elsewhere that the loyalty to Uncle Sam is the loyalty to doughnuts and ham and sweet potatoes and the loyalty to the German Vaterland is the loyalty to Pfannkuchen and Christmas Stollen. As for international understanding, I feel that macaroni has done more for our appreciation of Italy than Mussolini... in food, as in death, we feel the essential brotherhood of mankind.
 * Ch. IV : On Having A Stomach, p. 46

 * How many of us are able to distinguish between the odors of noon and midnight, or of winter and summer, or of a windy spell and a still one? If man is so generally less happy in the cities than in the country, it is because all these variations and nuances of sight and smell and sound are less clearly marked and lost in the general monotony of gray walls and cement pavements.
 * p. 129

 * Those who are wise won't be busy, and those who are too busy can't be wise.
 * p. 150

 * On the whole, the enjoyment of leisure is something which decidedly costs less than the enjoyment of luxury. All it requires is an artistic temperament which is bent on seeking a perfectly useless afternoon spent in a perfectly useless manner.
 * p. 153. Often quoted as: "If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live."

 * No, the enjoyment of an idle life doesn't cost any money. The capacity for true enjoyment of idleness is lost in the moneyed class and can be found only among people who have a supreme contempt for wealth. It must come from an inner richness of the soul in a man who loves the simple ways of life and who is somewhat impatient with the business of making money.
 * p. 155

 * True peace of mind comes from accepting the worst.
 * p. 158

 * The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so unhappy and so nervous.
 * p. 162

 * A man who has to be punctually at a certain place at five o'clock has the whole afternoon from one to five ruined for him already.
 * p. 163

 * If the early Chinese people had any chivalry, it was manifested not toward women and children, but toward old people. That feeling of chivalry found clear expression in Mencius in some such saying as, "The people with gray hair should not be seen carrying burdens on the street," which was expressed as the final goal of good government.
 * p. 193

 * Life after all is made up of eating and sleeping, of meeting and saying good-by to friends, of reunions and farewell parties, of tears and laughter, of having a haircut once in two weeks, of watering a potted flower and watching one’s neighbor fall off his roof.
 * p. 202

 * There is something in the nature of tea that leads us into a world of quiet contemplation of life.
 * p. 224

 * The greatest ideal that man can aspire to is not to be a show-case of virtue, but just to be a genial, likable and reasonable human being.
 * p. 242

 * The Chinese do not draw any distinction between food and medicine.
 * Ch. IX : The Enjoyment of Living, p. 249, as quoted in

 * By association with nature's enormities, a man's heart may truly grow big also. There is a way of looking upon a landscape as a moving picture and being satisfied with nothing less big as a moving picture, a way of looking upon tropic clouds over the horizon as the backdrop of a stage and being satisfied with nothing less big as a backdrop, a way of looking upon the mountain forests as a private garden and being satisfied with nothing less as a private garden, a way of listening to the roaring waves as a concert and being satisfied with nothing less as a concert, and a way of looking upon the mountain breeze as an air-cooling system and being satisfied with nothing less as an air-cooling system. So do we become big, even as the earth and firmaments are big. Like the "Big Man" described by Yuan Tsi (A.D. 210-263), one of China's first romanticists, we "live in heaven and earth as our house."
 * p. 282

 * When the mirror meets with an ugly woman, when a rare ink-stone finds a vulgar owner, and when a good sword is in the hands of a common general, there is utterly nothing to be done about it.
 * p. 317

 * A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.
 * p. 332

 * The wise man reads both books and life itself.
 * p. 388

 * Such religion as there can be in modern life, every individual will have to salvage from the churches for himself.
 * p. 397

 * I feel, like all modern Americans, no consciousness of sin and simply do not believe in it. All I know is that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth.
 * p. 407

Quotes about Lin Yutang

 * [My Country and My People] is, I think, the truest, the most profound, the most complete, the most important book yet written about China. And, best of all, it is written by a Chinese, a modern, whose roots are firmly in the past, but whose rich flowering is in the present.
 * Pearl S. Buck, Introduction to Lin Yutang's My Country and My People (1935), p. xii

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Lin Yutang


text:
Thomas Nagel

Thomas Nagel (born 4 July 1937) is an American philosopher. He is University Professor of Philosophy and Law, Emeritus, at New York University, where he taught from 1980 to 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest are legal philosophy, political philosophy, and ethics.

Quotes

 * All of us, I believe, are fortunate to have been born.
 * Death (essay), Thomas Nagel, CUP, 1970 and 1979 versions.

 * If sub specie aeternitatis [from eternity's point of view] there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.
 * "The Absurd" 1971, The Journal of Philosophy, also in Mortal Questions, Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 23.

 * That is what is meant, I think by the allegation that it is good simply to be alive, even if one is undergoing terrible experiences. The situation is roughly this: There are elements which, if added to one's experience, make life better; there are other elements which if added to one's experience, make life worse. But what remains when these are set aside is not merely neutral: it is emphatically positive. Therefore life is worth living even when the bad elements of experience are plentiful, and the good ones too meager to outweigh the bad ones on their own. The additional positive weight is supplied by experience itself, rather than by any of its consequences.
 * Death (essay), Thomas Nagel, CUP, this paragraph not present in the 1970 version, but present in the 1979 version.

 * The problem is one of opposition between subjective and objective points of view. There is a tendency to seek an objective account of everything before admitting its reality. But often what appears to a more subjective point of view cannot be accounted for in this way. So either the objective conception of the world is incomplete, or the subjective involves illusions that should be rejected.
 * "Subjective and Objective," in Mortal Questions, Cambridge University Press, 1979, p. 196.

 * Eventually, I believe, current attempts to understand the mind by analogy with man-made computers that can perform superbly some of the same external tasks as conscious beings will be recognized as a gigantic waste of time.
 * The View from Nowhere. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 16. ISBN: 0195056442.

 * In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.
 * The Last Word, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 130-131.

 * I believe that there is a necessary connection in both directions between the physical and the mental, but that it cannot be discovered a priori. Opinion is strongly divided on the credibility of some kind of functionalist reductionism, and I won't go through my reasons for being on the antireductionist side of that debate. Despite significant attempts by a number of philosophers to describe the functional manifestations of conscious mental states, I continue to believe that no purely functionalist characterization of a system entails — simply in virtue of our mental concepts — that the system is conscious.
 * "Conceiving the Impossible and the Mind-Body Problem," Royal Institute of Philosophy annual lecture, given in London on February 18, 1998, published in Philosophy vol. 73 no. 285, July 1998, pp 337-352, Cambridge University Press, p. 337.

 * Everyone is entitled to commit murder in the imagination once in a while, not to mention lesser infractions.
 * "Concealment and Exposure" (1998).

The View From Nowhere (1986)

 * We assume that our own advances in objectivity are steps along a path that extends beyond them and beyond all our capacities. But even allowing unlimited time, or an unlimited number of generations, to take as many successive steps as we like, the process can never be completed. ... What is wanted is some way of making the most objective standpoint the basis of action.
 * pp. 128-129.

 * Ethics increases the range of what it is about ourselves that we can will—extending it from our actions to the motives and character traits and dispositions from which they arise. We want to be able to will the sources of our actions down to the very bottom.
 * p. 135.

Quotes about Nagel

 * The kind of worry I am talking about here—the worry about what’s left of the individual—moved Thomas Nagel, in The View from Nowhere, to reverse his own earlier defense of the publicity of reason, and to argue that some kinds of reasons are private or agent-relative after all. An agent has a special relationship to his own projects and own loved ones, and Nagel argued that, because of that relationship, the agent’s desires to engage in those projects and to promote the happiness of his loved ones are sources of reasons for him but not necessarily for anybody else.
 * Christine M. Korsgaard, Self-Constitution (2009), Chap. 10 : How to be a Person

title: Thomas Nagel


text:
Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovitch Stravinsky (Russian: Игорь Фёдорович Стравинский) (June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971), a Russian-born composer, is thought to be one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. His musical language evolved over the years through many stylistic periods including neoclassicism and serialism, though he is perhaps most remembered for his early works, written in a primitive style for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes; L'Oiseau de Feu (The Firebird), Petrushka and Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring).

1930s

 * For I consider that music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude of mind, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music. That is by no means the purpose of its existence. If, as is nearly always the case, music appears to express something, this is only an illusion and not a reality. It is simply an additional attribute which, by tacit and inveterate agreement, we have lent it, thrust upon it, as a label, a convention – in short, an aspect which, unconsciously or by force of habit, we have come to confuse with its essential being.
 * Igor Stravinsky (1936). An Autobiography, p. 53-54.

1940s

 * As for myself, I need music for hygienic purposes, for the health of my soul. Without music in its best sense there is chaos. For my part, music is a force which gives reason to things, a force which creates organization, which attunes things. Music probably attended the creation of the universe.
 * The Musical Digest (1946)

1950s

 * I was...attacked for being a pasticheur, chided for composing “simple” music, blamed for deserting “modernism,” accused of renouncing my “true Russian heritage.” People who had never heard of, or cared about, the originals cried “sacrilege”: “The classics are ours. Leave the classics alone.” To them all my answer was and is the same: You “respect,” but I love.
 * Expositions and Developments (1959), pp. 113-114

1960s

 * My music is best understood by children and animals.
 * Igor Stravinsky. The Observer, Oct 8, 1961.
 * One has a nose. The nose scents and it chooses. An artist is simply a kind of pig snouting truffles.
 * 1962, quoted in Andriessen and Schoenberger, The Apollonian Clockwork (1989). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 * The over-publicized bit about expression (or non-expression) was simply a way of saying that music is supra-personal and super-real and as such beyond verbal meanings and verbal descriptions. It was aimed against the notion that a piece of music is in reality a transcendental idea "expressed in terms of" music, with the reductio ad absurdum implication that exact sets of correlatives must exist between a composer's feelings and his notation. It was offhand and annoyingly incomplete, but even the stupider critics could have seen that it did not deny musical expressivity, but only the validity of a type of verbal statement about musical expressivity. I stand by the remark, incidentally, though today I would put it the other way around: music expresses itself.
 * Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft (1962). Expositions and Developments.

 * The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead.
 * Igor Stravinsky. "Subject: Music", New York Times Magazine, 9/27/64.

1970s and later

 * The phenomenon of music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the co-ordination between man [sic] and time.
 * Quoted in DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465, Ch. 3. from Igor Stravinsky' Autobiography (1962). New York: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc., p. 54.

 * Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it.
 * Quoted by Géza Szamosi, The Twin Dimensions: Inventing Time and Space (New York, 1986), p. 232.

Themes and Conclusions (1982)
Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft (1982). Themes and Conclusions, Berkeley: University of California Press.

 * Much of the music is a Merzbild, put together from whatever came to hand. I mean, for example...the Alberti-bass horn solo accompanying the Messenger. I also mean the fusion of such widely divergent types of music as the Folies Bergeres tune at No. 40 ('The girls enter, kicking') and the Wagnerian 7th-chords at Nos. 58 and 74."
 * p. 27: Dialogues.

 * What I cannot follow are the manic-depressive fluctuations from total control to no control, from the serialization of all elements to chance.
 * p. 33.

 * Composers combine notes, that's all.
 * p. 52 : Dialogues.

 * It is the transcendent (or 'abstract' or 'self-contained') nature of music that the new so called concretism--Pop Art, eighteen-hour slices-of-reality films, musique concrete--opposes. But instead of bringing art and reality closer together, the new movement merely thins out the distinction.
 * p. 188.

Quotes about Igor Stravinsky

 * One can say that for European music the innovation of Stravinsky was revolutionary because again, Stravinsky and that whole group of European composers who introduced African tone into European music. In "Afternoon of a Faun" and "The Rite of Spring" and all of that you can keep hearing, those notes, that pentatonic scale.
 * 1977 interview in Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989)

 * It was because the melody and harmony were so fresh that we found Russian music irresistible. This freshness was no matter of choice. Musicians of the West had established the foundation of their whole tonal concept, both melodic and harmonic, upon the relation of a tone to its dominant. Striving for an expressive system that should be rational, little by little they reduced all steps and figures to the affirmation of this relationship. For this system Rameau evolved his theory. Admirable as it was, it represented only a certain condensation of all the resources of the art. It remained for music in our time to open up new possibilities. The Russians, however, had no part in that tradition. Although their music recognized the essential character of that relationship, it did not make the same use of it. At the same time that Stravinsky started to compose, Russian music was a hundred years old. But it had begun to show a certain weakening of force. This was one reason impelling Stravinsky to leave his fatherland. He felt more free to fulfill his destiny in the climate of Debussy and Ravel than in a St Petersburg haunted by Wagner. But this much is clear. Though he chose to live, from then on, among foreign musicians, it was to create in a fashion unlike theirs.
 * Ernest Ansermet, "Stravinsky's Gift to the West," Stravinsky in the Theatre (1949), edited by Minna Lederman, p. 119

 * That he is a master is universally accepted. That his originality is unrivalled (for an eminently tonal composer) we all realize. That his influence has been formidable goes without saying. But to me as a conductor, his unique value is his fabulous variety. [...] The variety itself is manifold. There is a stylistic variety which makes each work sound new and different from the last. We are treated to a series of historical flashes ranging from Pergolesi to Tchaikovsky. We can select from a continuum that runs from irony to pure balletic entertainment to the most moving profundity. There are all degrees of complexity, from the Norwegian Moods to Petrouchka. And there is infinite variety of orchestral sonority. No two pieces ever sound really alike in timbre. The last quality is what mystifies me. Especially because the personal trademarks are always present: the niceties of his doublings, the disposition of his chords, his unconventional use of strings, his addiction to wind instruments, and his uncompromisingly lean clarity, even in the earlier works. He combines, in his handling of the orchestral groups, a stability which always guarantees a "sound," with an almost fussy way of casting subtle lights and shadows by means of meticulous detail. Yet one never tires of his sonorities. [...] Stravinsky's variety is a treasure, and a conductor's boon. In an audience, I am a fan; as a composer, a humble admirer; as a worker in the theatre, an observing student. But as a conductor, I am eternally grateful.
 * Leonard Bernstein, "A Note on Variety," Stravinsky in the Theatre (1949), edited by Minna Lederman, pp. 132, 133

 * A state of alarm is not the best mood in which to listen to Stravinsky's music. There are things in it which at a first hearing, at any rate, appear unnecessarily ugly and wilfully extravagant. But there is also much in which whoever has followed the trend of modern music cannot fail to recognize not only the daring innovator but the capable workman.
 * Francis Boyd, "Stravinsky's New Ballet", The Guardian (1913)
 * Regarding The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

 * Alert to all influences, Stravinsky receives and dominates them, only to reaffirm more and more his own personality. He is a living proof that authentic genius does not, indeed cannot, evade external influence but always absorbs and masters it.
 * Carlos Chavez, "Perpetual Renewal," Stravinsky in the Theatre (1949), edited by Minna Lederman, p. 128

 * Isn't it surprising that, at the age of sixty-five, Stravinsky is still writing problem music? All the other composers over fifty—the famous ones, I mean—are turning out more or less what is expected of them. It seems a long time since we got a jolt from Hindemith. Schönberg's latest is problematical certainly, but in the same way it has been for the past thirty years. Milhaud, Honegger, Prokofiev are all sticking close to form. Only Stravinsky manages to  mix his elements, including even the familiar ones, in such a way that no one can predict just where he will be taking us next. But perhaps the most impressive point of all is that over and beyond the questions of problem or influence there remains in Stravinsky's music an irreducible core that defies imitation. The essence of the man—his special "tone," his very personal brand of seriousness, the non-academic texture of his music—in short, the sum total of his extraordinary individuality, has never to my knowledge been adequately described, let alone imitated. Despite the widespread influence of his music, Stravinsky as a composer remains a singularly remote and removed figure, a composer whose passport to the future needs no signature other than his own.
 * Aaron Copland, "Influence, Problem, Tone," Stravinsky in the Theatre (1949), edited by Minna Lederman, p. 122

 * Stravinsky, the chameleon-musician, the man of a thousand-and-one styles, has bequeathed us a totally unified treasury of rhythm that traces a perfect arc from his first to most recent work, rising from the simple to the complex then falling from the complex to the simple.
 * Olivier Messiaen, "Rhythm in the Music of Igor Stravinsky", La Revue musicale 191 (1939)

 * The great privilege of musicians now in their fifties is to have witnessed at first hand all the works of Stravinsky as he produced them. In 1910 I was present at the premiere of 'L'Oiseau de Feu. After that we had to wait a year, more or less, to hear the next work. Every year thereafter Diaghilev brought us the new Stravinsky—always different, always unexpected, always more than exciting. From L'Oiseau de Feu to the extraordinary Orpheus that Stravinsky played on his piano for my wife and me in Hollywood in 1947, every work has its weight, its deep resounding in our soul. Each time different problems are involved, and each time their solutions are achieved in masterly fashion. I am thankful to be fifty-five years old and to have been able, for thirty-seven of them, to observe this prodigious production. While teaching at Mills College I had a tremendous experience which increased my admiration for Stravinsky (if that were indeed possible). I established a course of study in his music, and every Tuesday I analyzed, one after the other, all his works. To go through these scores, written between 1910 and 1947, is a real comfort for a musician and his students, united in their love of art.
 * Darius Milhaud, "Thirty-Seven Years," Stravinsky in the Theatre (1949), edited by Minna Lederman, pp. 131-132

 * The music of Le Sacre du Printemps baffles verbal description. To say that much of it is hideous as sound is a mild description. There is certainly an impelling rhythm traceable. Practically it has no relation to music at all as most of us understand the word.
 * Musical Times, London, August 1, 1913, quoted in: Slonimsky, Nicolas (1953). Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time. Seattle: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0295785799.
 * Regarding The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

 * J. Robert Oppenheimer: [Ernest] Lawrence, you embrace the revolution in physics, can’t you see it everywhere else? Picasso, Stravinsky, Freud, Marx...
 * Oppenheimer, written and directed by Christopher Nolan, as interpreted by Cillian Murphy

 * This intersecting of inherently non-symmetrical diatonic elements with inherently non-diatonic symmetrical elements seems to me the defining principle of the musical language of Le Sacre and the source of the unparalleled tension and conflicted energy of the work.
 * George Perle (1990). The Listening Composer, p. 83. California: University of California Press. ISBN 0520069919.
 * Regarding The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

 * The diatonicism of Le Sacre du printemps should not be understood in the restrictive sense of the major/minor system, but in terms of something more basic. Like the symmetrical partitionings of the twelve-tone scale in Le Sacre, its diatonicism may also be explained in terms of interval cycles--more simply and coherently, in fact, than in terms of the traditional modes and scales. With the single exception of interval[-class] 5, every interval[-class] from 1 through 6 will partition the space of an octave into equal segments. A seven-note segment of the interval-5 cycle [C5], telescoped into the compass of an octave, divides the octave into unequal intervals--'whole-steps' and 'half-steps.'
 * George Perle (1990). The Listening Composer, p. 84. California: University of California Press. ISBN 0520069919.
 * Regarding The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

 * For my part I did not approve of Stravinsky's predilection for Bach's method — pseudo-Bachism — or rather, I did not approve adopting someone else's idiom and calling it one's own. True, I had written a Classical Symphony myself, but that was only a passing phase. With Stravinsky this 'Bachism' was becoming the basic line of his music.
 * Sergei Prokofiev, Autobiography: Articles. Reminiscences, p. 61

 * Now we will throw these mediocre kitschmongers into slavery, and teach them to venerate the German spirit and to worship the German God.
 * Arnold Schoenberg, regarding "the bourgeois tendencies of musical reactionaries such as Stravinsky and Ravel", in a letter to Alma Mahler, 1914 after the outbreak of war. Quoted in "Impressions of War" by Philip Clark, The Gramaphone, 4 August 2014.

 * More like a sacrilege du printemps.
 * Overheard joke of Richard Strauss, later reported to Stravinsky. Found in Kurt Wilhelm, Richard Strauss - an intimate portrait. Thames and Hudson, London, 1898. (Translated from original 1984 German edition by Mary Whittard), page 142.

title: Igor Stravinsky


text:
Anton Webern

Anton von Webern (3 December 1883 – 15 September 1945) was an Austrian composer of atonal music.

Quotes

 * Music is natural law as related to the sense of hearing.
 * The Path to the New Music

 * Except for the violin pieces and a few of my orchestra pieces, all of my works from the Passacaglia on relate to the death of my mother.
 * Letter to Alban Berg. Hayes, Malcolm. 1995. Anton von Webern, p. 71

About

 * Webern attracts me, though there's a lot that I don't understand. His music is a combination of purity, complexity and abstraction in the very best sense of the term.
 * Sviatoslav Richter, in Bruno Monsaingeon, Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations (2001)

 * Doomed to total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference, he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, of whose mines he had a perfect knowledge.
 * Igor Stravinsky

 * "[the impression of the first time I heard Webern's music in a concert performance] was the same as I was to experience a few years later when I first laid eyes on a Mondriaan canvas...: those things, of which I had acquired an extremely intimate knowledge, came across as crude and unfinished when seen in reality"
 * Karel Goeyvaerts, quoted in: 1994. "Paris: Darmstadt 1947-1956: Excerpt from the Autobiographical Portrait", translated by Patrick Daly, Peter Vosch, and Roger Janssens. p. 39

title: Anton Webern