We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

I owe my solitude to other people.

Sincere words are not fine; fine words are not sincere.

I don’t think a lot of people know personally who I am.

If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.

To observations which ourselves we make, we grow more partial for th‘ observer’s sake.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself, The more he gives to others, the more he gets himself. The Way of Heaven does one good but never does one harm. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.

There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone’s imagination.

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

One might say that our words are a movie screen that reveals what we have been thinking and the attitudes we have.

My records are borderline dance records. They’ve got a real electro-rock heart and soul, and the vibe of the sentiment is pop, but there’s a lot of people that were like, ‚This is a dance record.‘

I never knew a more presumptuous person than myself. The fact that I say that shows that what I say is true.

Libraries raised me.

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering.

Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.

Go to you bosom: Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know.

Those whom the gods love grow young.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

Would that I were a dry well, and that the people tossed stones into me, for that would be easier than to be a spring of flowing water that the thirsty pass by, and from which they avoid drinking.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed… It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosopher’s or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself, and that is why you must know yourself – Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self.

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.

No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.

I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.

My ‚fear‘ is my substance, and probably the best part of me.

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way – by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

I don’t know what ‚normal‘ means, anyway.

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?