Quotes by Muhammad Iqbal

"But the universe, as a collection of finite things, presents itself as a kind of island situated in a pure vacuity to which time, regarded as a series of mutually exclusive moments, is nothing and does nothing."

"I have seen the movement of the sinews of the sky, And the blood coursing in the veins of the moon."

"Unbeliever is he who follows predestination even if he be Muslim, Faithful is he, if he himself is the Divine Destiny."

"I am a hidden meaning made to defy. The grasp of words, and walk away With free will and destiny. As living, revolutionary clay."

"Since love first made the breast an instrument Of fierce lamenting, by its flame my heart Was molten to a mirror, like a rose I pluck my breast apart, that I may hang This mirror in your sight."

"Destiny is the prison and chain of the ignorant. Understand that destiny like the water of the Nile: Water before the faithful, blood before the unbeliever."

"Become dust - and they will throw thee in the air; Become stone - and they will throw thee on glass."

"Be not entangled in this world of days and nights; Thou hast another time and space as well."

"The wing of the Falcon brings to the king, the wing if the crow brings him to the cemetery."

"A wrong concept misleads the understanding; a wrong deed degrades the whole man, and may eventually demolish the structure of the human ego."

"Plants and minerals are bound to predestination. The faithful is only bound to the Divine orders."

"Islam is itself destiny and will not suffer destiny."

"It is true that we are made of dust. And the world is also made of dust. But the dust has motes rising."

"Why should I ask the wise men: Whence is my beginning? I am busy with the thought: Where will be my end?"

"Nations are born in the hearts of poets, they prosper and die in the hands of politicians."

"I lead no party; I follow no leader. I have given the best part of my life to careful study of Islam, its law and polity, its culture, its history and its literature."

"Rise above sectional interests and private ambitions... Pass from matter to spirit. Matter is diversity; spirit is light, life and unity."

"The truth is that the religious and the scientific processes, though involving different methods, are identical in their final aim. Both aim at reaching the most real."

"Indeed, in view of its function, religion stands in greater need of a rational foundation of its ultimate principles than even the dogmas of science."

"Vision without power does bring moral elevation but cannot give a lasting culture."