1207–1273 · Persian poet, Islamic scholar & Sufi mystic
Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi was a 13th-century Persian poet, jurist and Sufi mystic whose Masnavi and Divan-i Shams are cornerstones of Persian literature. In the West he is among the best-selling poets — largely through loose interpretive renderings that strip his Islamic context, which is exactly how lines he never wrote circulate under his name. Because his popular English ‘quotes’ are so often paraphrase or invention, an unsourced feel-good line like this one is suspect by default.