John Lennon Quotes

134 Sourced Quotes

What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, "Get rid of the possessions of the mind." Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right?

John Lennon
I believe that God is like a powerhouse, like where you keep electricity, like a power station. And that he's a supreme power, and that he's neither good not bad, left, right, black or white. He just is. And we tap that source of power and make of it what we will. Just as electricity can kill people in a chair, or you can light a room with it. I think God is.

John Lennon
If everybody demanded peace instead of another television set, there'd be peace.

John Lennon
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?

John Lennon
Part of me suspects that I'm a loser and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.

John Lennon
I don't mind people putting us down, because if everybody really liked us, it would be a bore. You've got to have people putting you down. It doesn't give any edge to it if everybody just falls flat on their face saying, "You're great." We enjoy some of the criticisms as well, they're quite funny; some of the clever criticisms, not the ones that don't know anything, but some of the clever ones are quite fun.

John Lennon
Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something.

John Lennon
Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as though they're here to stay.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

John Lennon
A working class hero is something to be
If you want to be a hero then just follow me.

John Lennon
An outlaw by profession, an inlaw by marriage. His tail lights were deteriorating, but his collection of porcelain remained a constant companion.

John Lennon
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV And you think you're so clever and classless and free But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.

John Lennon
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules A working class hero is something to be

John Lennon
I think a label like "avant-garde" defeats itself. You learn to have avant-garde exhibitions. The very fact that avant-garde can have an exhibition defeats the purpose of avant-garde, because it's already formalised and ritualised.

John Lennon
If people take any notice of what we say, we say we've been through the drug scene, man, and there's nothing like being straight.

John Lennon
Everybody seems to think I'm lazy,
I don't mind, I think they're crazy Running everywhere at such a speed Till they find there's no need.
Please don't spoil my day, I'm miles away And after all I'm only sleeping.

John Lennon
Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the wayThat's another piece of garbage. What the hell's it based on? We couldn't've come from anything-fish, maybe, but not monkeys. I don't believe in the evolution of fish to monkeys to men. Why aren't monkeys changing into men now? It's absolute garbage. It's absolutely irrational garbage, as mad as the ones who believe the world was made only four thousand years ago, the fundamentalists.

John Lennon
People never grasp the fact that they're going to have to go through the same thing again. They get to the sort of five-year stretch or the seven-year itch or whatever these tension points are that seem to be organic, built in, like the tide coming in and going out. It's like every time the tide goes out you quit--you move your house or something.

John Lennon
It was a load of rubbish. It was like meeting Engelbert Humperdinck.

John Lennon
That's what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be.

John Lennon
You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

John Lennon
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are great examples of fantastic nonviolents who died violently. I can never work that out. We're pacifists, but I'm not sure what it means when you're such a pacifist that you get shot. I can never understand that.

John Lennon
When we say "War is over if you want it," we mean that if everyone demanded peace instead of another TV set, we'd have peace.

John Lennon
All we are saying is give peace a chance.

John Lennon
It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. I don't appreciate worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or of dead John Wayne. It's the same thing. Making Sid Vicious a hero, Jim Morrison — it's garbage to me. I worship the people who survive. Gloria Swanson, Greta Garbo.

John Lennon
If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that.... I believe in what I do, and I'll say that.

John Lennon