Bob Dylan is an American singer, songwriter, and musician who is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential artists in the history of popular music. He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Dylan’s early years were spent in the small mining town of Hibbing, Minnesota, where he developed a passion for music and began playing guitar and harmonica.
Dylan moved to New York City in 1961 and quickly became a fixture in the Greenwich Village folk music scene. His early albums, including “The Free wheel in’ Bob Dylan” and “The Times They Are A-Changing’,” established him as a powerful songwriter with a unique voice and a knack for social commentary. Dylan’s music was heavily influenced by traditional folk and blues, as well as the work of writers such as Woody Guthrie and Jack Kerouac.
You May Also Like: Audrey Hepburn Quotes About Kindness, Generosity And Empathy
In the mid-1960s, Dylan famously “went electric” and began incorporating rock and roll elements into his music. This move was controversial among his fans, but it also broadened his appeal and cemented his status as a cultural icon. He released a string of classic albums during this period, including “Bringing It All Back Home,” “Highway 61 Revisited,” and “Blonde on Blonde.”
Throughout the 1970s, Dylan continued to experiment with different styles and sounds, including country, gospel, and even reggae. He also continued to tour extensively and collaborate with other musicians, including The Band, with whom he famously recorded the album “The Basement Tapes.” In 1975, he released the album “Blood on the Tracks,” which is widely considered to be one of his greatest works.
Dylan’s influence on popular music cannot be overstated. His songs have been covered by countless artists, and his lyrics have been studied and analyzed by fans and scholars alike. He has won numerous awards for his music, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016, which recognized “his mastery of the art of songwriting and his profound influence on American culture.”
Similar Post: Babe Ruth Quotes About Confidence And Love Of The Game
Despite his many accomplishments, Dylan remains an enigmatic figure, often eschewing publicity and maintaining a sense of mystery around his personal life. He continues to tour and record new music, and his influence on popular culture shows no signs of waning.
Inspired and enlightened as we delve into the profound words of Bob Dylan on freedom, justice, and humanity. These powerful quotes encapsulate his unique perspective and serve as a timeless reflection of the human experience.
Famous Bob Dylan Quotes
1. “Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain.”
2. “Play it fuckin’ loud!”
3. “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.”
4. “I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.”
5. “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”
6. “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours”
7. “The future for me is already a thing of the past -You were my first love and you will be my last”
8. “All I can be is me- whoever that is. ”
9. “And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking.”
10. “Sometimes it’s not enough to know what things mean, sometimes you have to know what things don’t mean.”
Check Out: Bell Hooks Quotes On Race, Gender And Sexuality
11. “Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that’s exactly the way we want it to be.”
12. “He not busy being born is busy dying.”
13. “People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.”
14. “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”
15. “I think women rule the world and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn’t allowed him to do or encouraged him to do.”
16. “Gonna change my way of thinking, make my self a different set of rules. Gonna put my good foot forward and stop being influenced by fools.”
17. “When you’ve got nothing, you’ve got nothing to loose.”
18. “May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung.”
19. “You can never be wise and be in love at the same time.”
20. “No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.”
More Quotes: Bette Davis Quotes Worth Reading and Sharing.
21. “I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul…”
22. “May God bless and keep you always, May your wishes all come true, May you always do for others And let others do for you. May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung, May you stay forever young,”
23. “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
24. “If you want to keep your memories, you first have to live them.”
25. “Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it’s like they didn’t fade away at all.”
26. “DESTINY is a feeling you have that you know something about yourself nobody else does. The picture you have in your own mind of what you’re about WILL COME TRUE. It’s a kind of a thing you kind of have to keep to your own self, because it’s a fragile feeling, and you put it out there, then someone will kill it. It’s best to keep that all inside.”
26. “Gotta head full of ideas that are driving me insane…”
27. “When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it – don’t back down and don’t give up – then you’re going to mystify a lot of folks.”
28.“If you try to be anyone but yourself, you will fail; if you are not true to your own heart, you will fail. Then again, there’s no success like failure”
29. “Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you’d like to act.”
30. “It frightens me, the awful truth, of how sweet life can be…”
Find More: Diogenes Quotes Unfolding Unconventional Wisdom In Witty Way
31. “every pleasure’s got an edge of pain, pay your ticket and don’t complain”
32. “Even if you don’t have all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don’t have that you don’t want (Bob Dylan’s dad)”
33. “i’ve forgotten more than you’ll ever know”
34. “You need something to open up a new door, to show you something you seen before but overlooked a hundred times or more”
35. “Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast”
36. “To live outside the law you must be honest.”
37. “You’re gonna have to serve somebody; well, it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody…”
38. “Chaos is a friend of mine.”
39. “People disagreeing everywhere you look makes you wanna stop and read a book. ”
40. “I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.”
Interesting Quotes: David Suzuki Quotes On Environment And All Living Things
41. “I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.”
42. “Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul”
43. “How does it feel, how does it feel to be without a home, like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone.”
44. “When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke”
45. “I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now. From the back pages”
46. “It’s a wicked life, but what the hell, the stars ain’t falling down.”
47. “The truth was obscure, Too profound and too pure, To live it you had to explode”
48. “I’m against nature. I don’t dig nature at all. I think nature is very unnatural. I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can’t touch with decay.”
49. “You don’t have to be afraid of looking into my face. We’ve done nothing to each other that time will not erase.”
50. “Mona Lisa must have had the highway blues; you can tell by the way she smiles.”
More Thoughts: David Bowie Quotes About Power Of Self-expression.
51. “It’s like my whole life never happened, When I see you, it’s as if I never had a thought. I know this dream, it might be crazy, But it’s the only one I’ve got.”
52. “You don’t necessarily have to write to be a poet. Some people work in gas stations and they’re poets. I don’t call myself a poet, because I don’t like the word. I’m a trapeze artist.”
53. “the only thing i knew how to do was to keep on keeping on”
54. “May you grow up to be righteous, may you grow up to be true. May you always know the truth and see the lights surrounding you. May you always be courageous, stand upright and be strong. May you stay forever young.”
55. “There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke. But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate, so let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late. ”
56. “I failed to communicate, that’s why I chose to leave”
57. “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.”
58. “All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.”
59. “Your heart is like the ocean, mysterious and dark.”
60. “Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now”
Wise Words: Corrie Ten Boom Quotes About Love, Faith and God
61. “They say that patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and then they make you king.”
62. “There’s only one day at a time here, then it’s tonight and then tomorrow will be today again.”
63. “You better start swimming, or you’ll sink like a stone. Because the Time’s they are a-changing.”
64. “The worth of things can’t be measured by what they cost but by what the cost you to get it, that if anything costs you your faith or your family, then the price is too high, and that there are some things that will never wear out.”
65. “songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment. They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality. Some different republic, some liberated republic… whatever the case, it wasn’t that I was anti-popular culture or anything and I had no ambition to stir things up. I just thought of mainstream culture as lame as hell and a big trick. It was like the unbroken sea of frost that lay outside the window and you had to have awkward footgear to walk with.”
66. “If ever asked to look at yourself, don’t.”
67. “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet?”
68. “Whatever colors you have in your mind, I’ll show them to you and you’ll see them shine.”
69. “All right, I’ll take a chance. I will fall in love with you. If i’m a fool you can have the night, you can have the morning too. Can you cook and sew. make flowers grow. Do you understand my pain? Are you willing to risk it all or is your love in vain?”
70. “She never stumbles, she’s got no place to fall. She’s nobody’s child, the law can’t touch her at all.”
Click For More Quotes: Clint Eastwood Quotes About Respect, Life & Politics
71. “Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.”
72. “Walkin’ through the leaves fallin’ from the trees, Feelin’ like a stranger nobody sees…”
73. “Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.”
74. “I was born very far from where I’m supposed to be, and so I’m on my way home.”
75. “A poem is a naked person….Some people say that I am a poet.”
76. “I didn’t come out of a cereal box. ”
77. “There is no equality. The only thing people all have in common is that they are all going to die.”
78. “You’ve got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend. When I was down you just stood there a grinin”
79. “i been meek, and hard like an oak, i seen pretty people disappear like smoke. friends will arrive, friends will disappear. if you want me, honey baby, i’ll be here.”
80. “New York was a city where you could be frozen to death in the midst of a busy street and nobody would notice.”
Read Also: Carl Sagan Quotes About Cosmos, Universe And Science
81. “Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free, Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands”
82. “Don’t follow leaders.”
83. “Why wait any longer for the one you love When he’s standing in front of you”
84. “There must be some kind of way out of here,’ said the joker to the thief…”
85. “When You Cease To Exist, Then Who Will You Blame?”
86. “The longer you live, the better you get.
87. “There’s no liquor in the land that can stop your brain from bleedin”
88. “let me forget about today until tomorrow”
89. “The line it is drawn The curse it is cast The slow one now Will later be fast As the present now Will later be past The new order is Rapidly fadin’. And the first one now Will later be last For the times they are a-changin’.”
90. “Couldn’t help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game.”
You May Also Like: Brian Clough Quotes On Teamwork, Perseverance And Dedication
91. “But if the arrow is straight And the point is slick, It can pierce through dust no matter how thick. So I’ll make my stand And remain as I am And bid farewell and not give a damn.”
92. “…in this ocean of hours I’m all the time drinking…”
93. “I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can’t touch with decay.”
94. “Thinking of a series of dreams Where the time and the tempo fly And there’s no exit in any direction ‘Cept the one that you can’t see with your eyes”
95. “Well, I try my best to be just like I am, But everybody wants you to be just like them, They sing while you slave and I just get bored”
96. “Beauty walks a razors edge, someday I’ll make it mine.”
97. “There’s no black and white, left and right to me anymore; there’s only up and down and down is very close to the ground. And I’m trying to go up without thinking about anything trivial such as politics. They have got nothing to do with it. I’m thinking about the general people and when they get hurt.”
98. “Don’t get up gentlemen. I’m only passing through!”
99. “Don’t Ask Me Nothing About Nothing, I Just Might Tell You the Truth ”
100. “The sun’s not yellow, its chicken!”