Bob Dylan is an iconic figure in the pop music culture and is regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time. His lyrics defied pop music conventions and became the soundtrack for the quest for social justice. Here are the best Bob Dylan quotes and song lyrics on life, love, money, success, and more that will change your perspective on life.
Born on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, Bob Dylan, originally named Robert Allen Zimmerman, is an American singer-songwriter.
Dylan emerged as the “voice of a generation” in the early 1960s when his songs like Blowin’ in the Wind and The Times They Are a-Changin’ became folk anthems for the civil rights movement and anti-war protests.
Through his music which was characterized by its introspective lyrics and poetic depth, he became the voice of the society and inspired millions of people.
As an artist, Dylan believed in continuously evolving himself, shifting from folk to to rock, from acoustic to electric, and from writing protest songs to deep personal reflections.
Being one of the best-selling music artists of all time, Dylan has sold over millions of albums, wrote more than 500 songs recorded by more than 2000 artists.
He has received numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Nobel in Literature, ten Grammy Awards, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, a Golden Globe Award, and an Academy Award.
More than a musician, Dylan was a cultural force whose words continue to inspire, provoke, and challenge people. These inspirational Bob Dylan quotes about life, love, music, and more will connect to your mind and soul.
Top 10 Bob Dylan Quotes
- “There is nothing so stable as change.” ― Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan Quotes - “All I can do is be me, whoever that is.” ― Bob Dylan
Quotes By Bob Dylan - “A mistake is to commit a misunderstanding.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” ― Bob Dylan
Quotes From Bob Dylan - “No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.” ― Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan Quotations - “Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain.”― Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan Quotes About Life - “Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them.” ― Bob Dylan
Best Bob Dylan Quotes - “Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Swallow your pride, you will not die, it’s not poison.” ― Bob Dylan
- “There’s a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it.” ― Bob Dylan
- “People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent.” ― Bob Dylan
- “All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.” ― Bob Dylan
Best Quotes By Bob Dylan
- “I’m inconsistent, even to myself.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Folk music is a bunch of fat people.” ― Bob Dylan
- “When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?” ― Bob Dylan
- “A poem is a naked person… Some people say that I am a poet.” ― Bob Dylan
- “If I wasn’t Bob Dylan, I’d probably think that Bob Dylan has a lot of answers myself.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Some people seem to fade away but then when they are truly gone, it’s like they didn’t fade away at all.” ― Bob Dylan
- “I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.” ― Bob Dylan
- “I change during the course of a day. I wake and I’m one person, and when I go to sleep I know for certain I’m somebody else.” ― Bob Dylan
- “What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.” ― Bob Dylan
- “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.” ― Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan Quotes From Songs
- “When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” ― Bob Dylan, Like A Rolling Stone
Bob Dylan Song Quotes - “It was gravity which pulled us down and destiny which broke us apart.” ― Bob Dylan, Idiot Wind
Bob Dylan Lyrics Quotes - “Why wait any longer for the one you love When he’s standing in front of you.” ― Bob Dylan, Lay, Lady, Lay
- “Sign in the window says lonely, sign on the door said no company allowed.” ― Bob Dylan, Sign On the Window
- “She knows there’s no success like failure and that failure’s no success at all.” ― Bob Dylan, Love Minus Zero / No Limit
Bob Dylan Lyrics Quotes
- “Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections than people who are most content.” ― Bob Dylan, Brownsville Girl
- “Yes, I wish that for just one time, You could stand inside my shoes, You’d know what a drag it is, To see you.” ― Bob Dylan, Positively 4th Street
- “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.” ― Bob Dylan, Union Sundown
- “Trust yourself, Trust yourself to do the things that only you know best. Trust yourself, Trust yourself to do what’s right and not be second-guessed.” ― Bob Dylan. Trust Yourself
- “She takes just like a woman, yes, she does, She makes love just like a woman, yes, she does, And she aches just like a woman, But she breaks just like a little girl.” ― Bob Dylan, Just Like A Woman
Famous Bob Dylan Quotes On Love
- “You say love is just a four letter word.” ― Bob Dylan
- “You can’t be wise and in love at the same time.” ― Bob Dylan
- “I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.” ― Bob Dylan
- “I could stay with you forever and never realize the time.”― Bob Dylan
- “If you want to keep your memories, you first have to live them.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Love is all there is, it makes the world go around. Love and only love, it can’t be denied.”― Bob Dylan
- “The future for me is already a thing of the past – You were my first love and you will be my last.”― Bob Dylan
- “I feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet, putting her in a wheel-barrow and wheeling her down the street.”― Bob Dylan
- “In harmony with cosmic sea, true love needs no company. It can cure the soul, it can make it whole, if dogs run free.”― Bob Dylan
- “Love is all there is, it makes the world go ’round Love and only love, it can’t be denied No matter what you think about it You just won’t be able to do without it Take a tip from one who’s tried.” ― Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan Quotes On Life
- “I’m mortified to be on the stage, but then again, it’s the only place where I’m happy.” – Bob Dylan
- “I define nothing. Not beauty, not patriotism. I take each thing as it is, without prior rules about what it should be.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.” ― Bob Dylan
- “This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.” ― Bob Dylan
- “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…”― Bob Dylan
Inspirational Bob Dylan Quotes
- “Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.”― Bob Dylan
- “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Yesterday’s just a memory, tomorrow is never what it’s supposed to be.” – Bob Dylan
- “You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free.” – Bob Dylan
- “You been down to the bottom with a bad man, babe But you’re back were you belong.” ― Bob Dylan
- “A lot of people can’t stand touring but to me it’s like breathing. I do it because I’m driven to do it.” – Bob Dylan
- “Don’t matter how much money you got, there’s only two kinds of people: there’s saved people and there’s lost people.” – Bob Dylan
- “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.” ― Bob Dylan
- “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.”― Bob Dylan
- “Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.” – Bob Dylan
Positive Quotes By Bob Dylan
- “Peace is the time it takes to reload your rifle.” ― Bob Dylan
- “All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Death to me means nothing as long as I can die fast.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Be grateful for the things you don’t have that you don’t want.” ― Bob Dylan
- “And if you don’t underestimate me, I won’t underestimate you.” ― Bob Dylan
- “May your heart always be joyful. May your song always be sung.” ― Bob Dylan
- Everything passes, Everything changes, Just do what you think you should do.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Whatever colors you have in your mind, I’ll show them to you and you’ll see them shine.” ― Bob Dylan
- “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future.” ― Bob Dylan
- “You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past – whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.” – Bob Dylan
- “The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them?” ― Bob Dylan
- “If your time to you is worth savin’ Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone For the times they are a-changin’.” ― Bob Dylan
- “Serve God and be cheerful, look upward, beyond, beyond the darkness of masks, the surprises of dawn, in the deep green grasses of the blood-stained world.” ― Bob Dylan
- “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.” ―Bob Dylan
More Bob Dylan Quotes And Sayings
- “I consider myself a poet first and a musician second. I live like a poet and I’ll die like a poet.” ― Bob Dylan
- “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.”― Bob Dylan
- “I am 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.” ― Bob Dylan
- “I don’t think the human mind can comprehend the past and the future. They are both just illusions that can manipulate you into thinking there’s some kind of change.” – Bob Dylan
- “You’re going to die. You’re going to be dead. It could be 20 years, it could be tomorrow, anytime. So am I. I mean, we’re just going to be gone. The world’s going to go on without us. All right now. You do your job in the face of that, and how seriously you take yourself you decide for yourself.” ― Bob Dylan
Conclusion
Which of these inspirational Bob Dylan quotes and song lyrics is your favorite? Do you have any other favorite quote that you want to add to the list? Feel free to share with us in the comment section below.
If you liked reading these thought-provoking quotes from Bob Dylan then don’t forget to check our collection of John Lennon quotes and Elvis Presley quotes.
Feel free to share these uplifting quotes with friends and family on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Pinterest, and more.
