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Who really said it

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

Attributed to Rumi 1207–1273 · Persian poet and Sufi mystic
Attributed Source text free to reuse

The thought is genuinely Rumi’s: the couplet sits in the Masnavi, Book III, line 1618, and R. A. Nicholson’s 1930 translation renders it “Every one has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that (work) has been put into his heart.” Nicholson’s “his” is distributive — it points back to the “Every one” that opens the same line — so the popular ending “in every heart” does not change the sense. What it lacks is a source: no published translation has been shown to carry that wording, and Wikiquote files it under Attributed with a 1997 book about creativity as its only citation.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Unconfirmed quote & credit

“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart” Attributed to Rumi. The couplet is genuine — Masnavi, Book III, line 1618 — and R. A. Nicholson's 1930 translation reads "Every one has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that (work) has been put into his heart." His "his" is distributive, so "in every heart" carries the same sense; it simply matches no identified published translation and has no named translator. Via Quotle.info

Can you use it?

Two different strings, two different answers. Nicholson’s 1930 English — “Every one has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that (work) has been put into his heart” — is in the public domain in the United States and free to use, including commercially; so is the thirteenth-century Persian beneath it. The popular “in every heart” ending is a different matter: no publication or translator has been identified for it, so this page claims no rights status for that wording. For a slide, use Nicholson’s line, credited as shown above.

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In context

Evoking the world of Rumi — Persian poet, Islamic scholar and Sufi mystic. Theme: "Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The Masnavi, Book III

Work
Masnavī-yi Maʿnavī (the Masnavi), Book III, line 1618
Composed
From about 1258 until Rumi’s death in 1273, in Konya
Translation
Reynold A. Nicholson, The Mathnawí of Jalálu’ddín Rúmí, Volume IV (London: Luzac & Co., 1930)
Popular wording
No identified translator

Every one has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that (work) has been put into his heart.
How should hand and foot be set in motion without desire? How should sticks and straws go (from their place) without any water or wind? Book III, line 1618

Nicholson’s translation, Masnavi Book III, lines 1618–1619. His “his heart” is distributive: grammatically singular, but bound to the “Every one” that opens the same line, exactly as the Persian is (har kasī … dilash). The verses leading up to it are general too — 1616, “Just as staying at home is easy to us, so travelling is easy to another class of people.” So “in every heart” is a loose rendering, not a change of scope; it is simply not the wording of any identified published translation. The Persian couplet reads “هر کسی را بهر کاری ساختند / میل آن را در دلش انداختند.”

Scanned 1930 volume
Nicholson’s Mathnawi Vol. IV at the Internet Archive
Masnavi Book 3, line 1618 — Persian with Nicholson’s English

How we traced it

Public domain

Rumi composed the Masnavi in Persian in the thirteenth century, so the original is long out of copyright. The English shown above is Reynold A. Nicholson’s, first published in Volume IV of his Mathnawi (Luzac & Co., London, 1930) ↗ — before 1931, and therefore in the public domain in the United States. No rights status is claimed for the loosened “in every heart” wording that circulates online, because no publication or translator for it has been identified.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What actually went wrong

This is not a fake Rumi quote — and that makes it unusual. The couplet is real and locatable. What drifted is the last six words, and then the citation trail vanished behind them.

“…put in every heart” Paraphrase

Nicholson’s translation reads “Every one has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that (work) has been put into his heart” — where “his” is distributive, bound to the “Every one” in the same line. The drift is therefore in the words, not the meaning: “in every heart” says what Nicholson says, but it is not what he wrote, and no other published translation has been found that does. The 1930 volume is scanned in full at the Internet Archive ↗.

Jan Phillips, Marry Your Muse (1997) Not a Rumi edition

This is the only source Wikiquote offers for the wording ↗, and it files the line under Attributed rather than among the sourced Masnavi passages. A book about creative practice is where the phrasing is documented; it is not where Rumi wrote.

Quote aggregators No source given

The line travels with a name and nothing else. BrainyQuote prints it under Rumi with no work, edition or translator ↗, which is why almost nobody encountering it can tell that a genuine couplet sits underneath.

Rumi wrote it. He wrote it in Persian, in the Masnavi, at Book III, line 1618 ↗ — and the English you have seen is a softened echo of the one careful translation that carried it over.

Context

Why the line matters

The couplet does not appear in a vacuum. In Nicholson’s translation it falls inside the “Story of the dervish who had secluded himself in the mountains” ↗, where Rumi is defending temperament against prescription: staying home is easy for one person and travelling easy for another; one man loves dominion, another loves the ironsmith’s handicraft. The line about particular work is the conclusion he draws from that ordinary observation.

What follows it is the part the internet drops. The very next verse asks, “How should hand and foot be set in motion without desire? How should sticks and straws go (from their place) without any water or wind?” Rumi is not promising that your calling will feel good — he is arguing that desire is the mechanism by which anything moves at all, and then warning you to check which way yours points before you follow it.

“How should hand and foot be set in motion without desire?”

Why Rumi in English drifts so far from Rumi in Persian

Reynold A. Nicholson’s eight-volume edition, described by the Encyclopaedia of Islam as “the classic edition” ↗, gave English readers the first complete translation of the Masnavi. It is scrupulous to the point of awkwardness — the parenthetical “(work)” in this very line marks a word Nicholson supplied for sense rather than found in the Persian.

Almost everything else in English is looser. The scholarly site Dar al-Masnavi devotes a long page to correcting popular renderings, noting that such “creative versions” rarely sound like Rumi to anyone reading the original, and are often shockingly altered ↗. The shift here is milder than most — Nicholson’s distributive “his heart” and the popular “every heart” carry the same sense — but it is the same mechanism: a scrupulous rendering replaced by a smoother one, which then travels with no translator’s name attached to it.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Purpose Work

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Rumi — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists this exact wording in its Attributed section, with Jan Phillips’s Marry Your Muse (1997) p. 75 as its only citation.
Nicholson, Mathnawi Vol. IV (1930)archive.org

Scan of the volume containing the translation of Books III and IV; the line stands at Book III, verse 1618.
Masnavi, Book 3, line 1618masnavi.net

The Persian couplet beside Nicholson’s English, with the neighbouring verses about hand, foot and desire.
Corrections of Popular Versionsdar-al-masnavi.org

Scholarly page comparing popular English “versions” of Rumi against the Persian, and explaining how they drift.
Masnavi — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Background on the six-book poem, its composition from about 1258 to Rumi’s death in 1273, and Nicholson’s edition.
The unsourced form in the wildbrainyquote.com

A representative aggregator listing: the “every heart” wording under Rumi’s name with no work, edition or translator given.

The true author

Who was Rumi?

Rumi

1207–1273 · Persian poet, Islamic scholar and Sufi mystic

Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī was born on 30 September 1207 in Wakhsh, in what is now Tajikistan, and died on 17 December 1273 in Konya, in present-day Turkey. A jurist and preacher before he was a poet, his encounter with the wandering mystic Shams of Tabriz turned him into one of the most prolific spiritual writers in any language; the order founded in his name became known in the West for its whirling dervishes. His masterwork, the Masnavi — six books and roughly 25,000 verses, dictated from about 1258 until his death — has been called “a Qur’an in Persian,” and he is today among the most widely read poets in the United States.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Underlying source

Jalálu’ddín Rúmí, The Mathnawí of Jalálu’ddín Rúmí, Volume IV: Containing the Translation of the Third & Fourth Books, trans. Reynold A. Nicholson, “E. J. W. Gibb Memorial” Series, New Series IV, 4 (London: Luzac & Co., 1930), Book III, line 1618. The circulating English wording, ending “in every heart,” differs from Nicholson’s “put into his heart” and has no identified translator.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/everyone-has-been-made-for-some-particular-work-and-the/

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