Zhuangzi Quotes

Once Chuang Chou dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Chuang Chou. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakeable Chuang Chou. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou.

Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly...

Are you sure/That we are awake? It seems to me/That yet we sleep, we dream

I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

Once it has learned to dream the double, the self arrives at this weird crossroad and a moment comes when one realizes that it is the double who dreams the self.

"Well, it's no use your talking about waking him," said Tweedledum, "when you're only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you're not real."

No man can prove upon awakening that he is the man who he thinks went to bed the night before, or that anything that he recollects is anything other than a convincing dream.

I dream, therefore I exist.

I've always been a big fan of Philip K. Dick; I love his work. There's a returning theme of identity and the fragility of our identity. Even when we are looking at what we think is a stark reality, it might actually be something completely different.

I'm the idea of the human imagination, which, when you think about it, is the only thing we can really be certain ISN'T imaginary.

All life is a dream, and all dreams are dreams.

During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream.

From birth to death man is a long sleep, sometimes dreaming with eyes closed, sometimes dreaming with eyes open, but dreaming all the same, all the time.

Knowing that you are living in a dreamworld is very liberating, because it gives you the option of waking up.

When I sleep I sleep and do not dream because it is as well that I am what I seem when I am in my bed and dream.

For how do we know that the thoughts which occur in dreaming are false rather than those others which we experience when awake, since the former are often not less vivid and distinct than the latter?

The night dreamer cannot articulate a cogito. The night dream is a dream without a dreamer.

Regain your senses, call yourself back, and once again wake up. Now that you realize that only dreams were troubling you, view this 'reality' as you view your dreams.

If all be a Dream, then he doth but dream that he makes the Question; and so it is not much matter that a waking Man should answer him.

Sometimes you wake up from a dream. Sometimes you wake up in a dream. And sometimes, every once in a while, you wake up in someone else's dream.

Which is more difficult, to awaken one who sleeps or to awaken one who, awake, dreams that he is awake?

Is Life itself a dream, I wonder?

The problem is we think we exist.

If you're wondering if you're dreaming, you're dreaming.

But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is. If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself.