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Top 25 Coleman Barks Quotes (2025 Update)

Coleman Barks Quote: “It’s a beautiful lucid dream that has language that I can fiddle with.”

1. “It’s a beautiful lucid dream that has language that I can fiddle with.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Everything is conversation.”

2. “Everything is conversation.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “The mystics always say that the experience they’re talking about is ineffable, that you can’t say it. Rumi was asked one time why he talked so much about silence. He said, “The radiant one inside me has never said a word.””

3. “The mystics always say that the experience they’re talking about is ineffable, that you can’t say it. Rumi was asked one time why he talked so much about silence. He said, “The radiant one inside me has never said a word.””

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Ramana Maharshi and Rumi would agree: the joy of being human is in uncovering the core we already are, the treasure buried in the ruin.”

4. “Ramana Maharshi and Rumi would agree: the joy of being human is in uncovering the core we already are, the treasure buried in the ruin.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “I think we all have a core that’s ecstatic, that knows and that looks up in wonder. We all know that there are marvelous moments of eternity that just happen. We know them.”

5. “I think we all have a core that’s ecstatic, that knows and that looks up in wonder. We all know that there are marvelous moments of eternity that just happen. We know them.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Longing becomes more poignant if in the distance you can’t tell whether your friend is going away or coming back. The pushing away pulls you in.”

6. “Longing becomes more poignant if in the distance you can’t tell whether your friend is going away or coming back. The pushing away pulls you in.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Just being sentient and in a body with the sun coming up is a state of rapture.”

7. “Just being sentient and in a body with the sun coming up is a state of rapture.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “A man once asked Rumi, “Why is it you talk so much about silence?” His answer: “The radiant one inside me has never said a word.”

8. “A man once asked Rumi, “Why is it you talk so much about silence?” His answer: “The radiant one inside me has never said a word.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “It’s such a foolish thing to argue about names, when what we’re doing is all one thing.”

9. “It’s such a foolish thing to argue about names, when what we’re doing is all one thing.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Little by little a person reaches forty and fifty and sixty, and feels more complete. God could’ve thrown full blown prophets flying through the cosmos in an instant.”

10. “Little by little a person reaches forty and fifty and sixty, and feels more complete. God could’ve thrown full blown prophets flying through the cosmos in an instant.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Anything you grab hold of on the bank breaks with the river’s pressure. When you do things from your soul, the river itself moves through you. Freshness and a deep joy are signs of the current.”

11. “Anything you grab hold of on the bank breaks with the river’s pressure. When you do things from your soul, the river itself moves through you. Freshness and a deep joy are signs of the current.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Water the fruit trees, and don’t water the thorns. Be generous to what nurtures the spirit and God’s luminous reason-light. Don’t honor what causes dysentry and knotted up tumors.”

12. “Water the fruit trees, and don’t water the thorns. Be generous to what nurtures the spirit and God’s luminous reason-light. Don’t honor what causes dysentry and knotted up tumors.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “When you meet a new friend, the world has more light in it, doesn’t it? Things become more spontaneous, and more full of laughing and freedom and novelty.”

13. “When you meet a new friend, the world has more light in it, doesn’t it? Things become more spontaneous, and more full of laughing and freedom and novelty.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “I like to walk around my neighborhood, late in the afternoon. I sometimes wind up at the wonderful, old Shell station that’s been changed into a coffee shop. Right where Johnny used to change my oil, I have a latte and take out my little book bag. It doesn’t sound very austere.”

14. “I like to walk around my neighborhood, late in the afternoon. I sometimes wind up at the wonderful, old Shell station that’s been changed into a coffee shop. Right where Johnny used to change my oil, I have a latte and take out my little book bag. It doesn’t sound very austere.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “If you think there’s an important difference between being a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist, then you’re making a division between your heart, what you love with, and the way you act in the world.”

15. “If you think there’s an important difference between being a Christian or a Jew or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Buddhist, then you’re making a division between your heart, what you love with, and the way you act in the world.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Love is the religion and the universe is the book.”

16. “Love is the religion and the universe is the book.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Nothing can save us. All this sweetness dies and rots.”

17. “Nothing can save us. All this sweetness dies and rots.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “I think my life is tremendously interesting, and surely, other people do too.”

18. “I think my life is tremendously interesting, and surely, other people do too.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “There’s some sort of exchange that goes on between human beings that is one of the highest things we do.”

19. “There’s some sort of exchange that goes on between human beings that is one of the highest things we do.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Solitude is a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.”

20. “Solitude is a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “I like to hope that Rumi’s poems, even in translation, carry the essence of the transforming friendship of Rumi and Shams, that the sun can reappear, whole and radiant in any one of us at any moment.”

21. “I like to hope that Rumi’s poems, even in translation, carry the essence of the transforming friendship of Rumi and Shams, that the sun can reappear, whole and radiant in any one of us at any moment.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “There was also more practical inquiry. How should I make a living? How do I get my relatives out of my house? Could you help me postpone payment of this loan? The dervishes had jobs in the workday world: mason, weaver, bookbinder, grocer, hatmaker, tailor, carpenter. They were craftsmen and -women, not renunciates of everyday life, but affirmative makers and ecstatics. Some people call them sufis, or mystics. I say they’re on the way of the heart.”

22. “There was also more practical inquiry. How should I make a living? How do I get my relatives out of my house? Could you help me postpone payment of this loan? The dervishes had jobs in the workday world: mason, weaver, bookbinder, grocer, hatmaker, tailor, carpenter. They were craftsmen and -women, not renunciates of everyday life, but affirmative makers and ecstatics. Some people call them sufis, or mystics. I say they’re on the way of the heart.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “A hand shifts our birdcages around. Some are brought closer. Some move apart. Do not try to reason it out. Be conscious of who draws you and who not.”

23. “A hand shifts our birdcages around. Some are brought closer. Some move apart. Do not try to reason it out. Be conscious of who draws you and who not.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “If you teach three university courses a day, you need something to turn your mind off.”

24. “If you teach three university courses a day, you need something to turn your mind off.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “The religions of the world are luminous in their individuality, and they have valuable social and soulmaking functions. Surely someday we will quit killing each other over their different strategies.”

25. “The religions of the world are luminous in their individuality, and they have valuable social and soulmaking functions. Surely someday we will quit killing each other over their different strategies.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Be loyal to your daily practice. Keep working. And keep knocking on the door. As you’ll remember, it is said in one of Rumi’s most pithy moments that the door we’re knocking on opens from the inside.”

26. “Be loyal to your daily practice. Keep working. And keep knocking on the door. As you’ll remember, it is said in one of Rumi’s most pithy moments that the door we’re knocking on opens from the inside.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Build a far mosque where you can read your soul-book and listen to the dreams that grew in the night.”

27. “Build a far mosque where you can read your soul-book and listen to the dreams that grew in the night.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “As long as you have not set fire to everything you call yours, you are not alive. You are not here! Your happiness is not real.”

28. “As long as you have not set fire to everything you call yours, you are not alive. You are not here! Your happiness is not real.”

— Coleman Barks

Coleman Barks Quote: “Inhale autumn, long for spring.”

29. “Inhale autumn, long for spring.”

— Coleman Barks

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