Bewilderment Quotes

• Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.

  Rumi

  Life, Beautiful, Faith

  Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, Rumi (2015). “Collected Poetical Works of Rumi (Delphi Classics)”, p.473, Delphi Classics

  89 Copy quote

  Show source

• Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Happiness, Deep Thought, World

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  79 Copy quote

  Show source

• Time has been transformed, and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhilaration.

  Khalil Gibran

  Inspiring, Time, Exhilaration

  "The Vision: Reflections on the Way of the Soul". Book by Kahlil Gibran, translated by Juan R. I. Cole. Chapter "Children of Gods, Scions of Apes", 1994.

  43 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion. Bewilderment brings intuitive knowledge.

  Rumi

  Opinion, Cleverness, Intuitive

  30 Copy quote

• Bewilderment is the true comprehension. Not to know where you are going is the true knowledge.

  Martin Luther

  Faith, Where You Are Going, Discipleship

  10 Copy quote

• Clever people seem not to feel the natural pleasure of bewilderment, and are always answering questions when the chief relish of a life is to go on asking them.

  Frank Moore Colby

  Life, Clever, Intelligent

  Frank Moore Colby (1926). “The Colby essays ...”

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in books; I'm beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn't pleasant, it's not sweet and harmonious like the invented stories; it tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.

  Hermann Hesse

  Dream, Sweet, Stars

  Hermann Hesse (2012). “Demian: A Dual-Language Book”, p.18, Courier Corporation

  211 Copy quote

  Show source

• Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light.

  Plato

  Eye, Dark, Men

  Plato (1977). “The Portable Plato”, p.333, Penguin

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Wisdom is finding joy in bewilderment

  Peter S. Beagle

  Joy, Findings

  Peter S. Beagle (2009). “We Never Talk about My Brother”

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I like the word bewilderment because it has both be and wild in it.

  Peter Gizzi

  Interview with Robert N. Casper, poems.com. 2007.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.

  Freeman Dyson

  Humor, Problem, Characteristics

  "Disturbing the Universe". Book by Freeman Dyson, 1979.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man's bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Men

  Nathaniel Hawthorne (2015). “Complete Novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Illustrated Edition): Fanshawe, The Scarlet Letter with its Adaptation, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, The Marble Faun, The Dolliver Romance, Septimius Felton, Grimshawe's Secret and Biography”, p.461, e-artnow

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• People in this world look at things mistakenly, and think that what they do not understand must be the void. This is not the true void. It is bewilderment.

  Miyamoto Musashi

  Thinking, People, Humanity

  Miyamoto Musashi, Yamamoto Tsunetomo, Inazo Nitobe (2010). “Honor: Samurai Philosophy of Life - The Essential Samurai Collection; The Book of Five Rings, Hagakure: The Way of the Samurai, Bushido: The Soul of Japan.”, p.45, Bottom of the Hill

  51 Copy quote

  Show source

• Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.

  Rumi

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Wisdom

  Rumi (2015). “Selected Poems”, p.336, Penguin UK

  88 Copy quote

  Show source

• Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.

  Rumi

  Inspirational, Motivational, Freedom

  Jelaluddin Rumi (2000). “Feeling the Shoulder of the Lion: Poetry and Teaching Stories of Rumi”, p.57, Shambhala Publications

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.

  Rumi

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  "Path for Greatness : Work as Spiritual Service". Book by Linda J. Ferguson, p. 51, 2000.

  111 Copy quote

  Show source

• Love is the ark appointed for the righteous,
  Which annuls the danger and provides a way of escape.
  Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.
  Cleverness is mere opinion, bewilderment intuition.

  Rumi

  Life, Love Is, Intuition

  Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, Rumi (2015). “Collected Poetical Works of Rumi (Delphi Classics)”, p.473, Delphi Classics

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Jesus will turn your sorrow into joy. One can only imagine the shock and bewilderment the Apostles felt when the Lord told them he must go away. Though they could not understand it at the time, his departure was for their benefit. The same is true of the unexpected setbacks and tragedies we experience in this life...When I consider the times when I have been confounded by events that seemed so contrary to what I thought God wanted for me, I should be mindful that they were permitted by the Lord's inscrutable providence for my own good, as difficult as that might be to fathom.

  Patrick Madrid

  Jesus, Joy, Sorrow

  6 Copy quote

• I was set down from the carrier's cart at the age of three; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life in the village began.

  Laurie Lee

  Age, Three, Terror

  'Cider with Rosie' (1959) p. 9

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Silence is an ocean. Speech is a river. When the ocean is searching for you, don't walk into the river. Listen to the ocean.

  Rumi

  Ocean, Rivers, Silence

  "The Essential Rumi". Book translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry and Reynold Nicholson. Chapter 18: "The Three Fish", p. 196, 1995.

  22 Copy quote

  Show source

• Silence
  is an ocean. Speech is a river.
  When the ocean is searching for you, don't walk
  into the language-river. Listen to the ocean,
  and bring your talky business to an end.
  Traditional words are just babbling
  in that presence, and babbling is a substitute
  for sight.

  Rumi

  Ocean, Sight, Rivers

  "The Essential Rumi". Book translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A. J. Arberry and Reynold Nicholson. Chapter 18: "The Three Fish", p. 196, 1995.

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation.

  Rumi

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Past

  "Teachers of Wisdom". Book by Igor Kononenko, p. 134, 2010.

  20 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are living in a time of trouble and bewilderment, in a time when none of us can foresee or foretell the future. But surely it is in times like these, when so much that we cherish is threatened or in jeopardy, that we are impelled all the more to strengthen our inner resources, to turn to the things that have no news value because they will be the same to-morrow that they were to-day and yesterday — the things that last, the things that the wisest, the most farseeing of our race and kind have been inspired to utter in forms that can inspire ourselves in turn.

  Laurence Binyon

  Yesterday, Race, Times Like These

  Lecture on opening a new library at Sutton High School on September 24, 1938. "Books As Source Of Inner Strength", The Times, p. 19, September 26, 1938.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Golf cannot be played in anger, or in any mood of emotiional excess. Half the golf balls struck by amateurs are hit if not in rage surely in bewilderment, or gloom, or in cynicism, or even hysterically - all of those emotional excesses must be contained by the professional. Which is why balance is one of the essential ingredients of golf. Professionals invariably trudge phlegmatically around the course - whatever emotions are seething within - with the grim yet placid and bored look of cowpokes, slack-bodied in their saddles, who have been tending the same herd for two months.

  George Plimpton

  Golf, Emotional, Two

  15 Copy quote

• He educated Maurice, or rather his spirit educated Maurice's spirit, for they themselves became equal. Neither thought "Am I led; am I leading?" Love had caught him out of triviality and Maurice out of bewilderment in order that two imperfect souls might touch perfection.

  E. M. Forster

  Order, Two, Perfection

  4 Copy quote