"What is arrogance?"

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What is arrogance?
It is being oblivious and insensible to what is essential,
as the ice is unaware of the sun.
When ice becomes conscious of the sun, it doesn't last long:
it warms and melts and flows away.

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In takabbor chist ghaflat az lobâb
monjamed chon ghaflat-e yakh ze âftâb
Chon khabar shod ze âftâbesh yakh na-mând
narm gasht o garm gasht o tiz rând

-- Mathnawi V:1941-1942
Version by Camille and Kabir Helminski
"Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance"
Threshold Books, 1996
(Persian transliteration courtesy of Yahyá Monastra)

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~

"What is arrogance?"