Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

This quote is widely credited to Rumi across quote sites and social media, but no verifiable source exists. It does not appear in *The Essential Rumi* or *A Year with Rumi* — the two major Coleman Barks translation anthologies — nor in any other identifiable published translation. No Persian original has been located; every Farsi rendering found online is a back-translation of the English quote rather than a source text, which would be expected if this were a genuine ruba'i or ghazal line. No page number, translator, or manuscript citation accompanies any instance of this quote, in contrast to genuinely sourced Rumi material.

Given the absence of a documented source in either English or Persian, we cannot confirm Rumi as the author, nor can we identify an alternative author to credit. We list this quote as attributed rather than verified or misattributed, reflecting its widespread popular credit to Rumi without corroborating evidence.