Woody Guthrie Quotes

It's a folk singer's job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people

I would like to see every single soldier on every single side, just take off your helmet, unbuckle your kit, lay down your rifle, and set down at the side of some shady lane, and say, nope, I aint a gonna kill nobody. Plenty of rich folks wants to fight. Give them the guns.

Any fool can make something complicated. It takes a genius to make it simple.

Some men rob you with a six-gun -- others rob you with a fountain pen.

I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work. And the songs that I sing are made up for the most part by all sorts of folks just about like you.

The best way to get to know any bunch of people is to go and listen to their music.

If we fix it so's you can't make money on war, we'll all forget what we're killing folks for.

The note of hope is the only note that can help us or save us from falling to the bottom of the heap of evolution, because, largely, about all a human being is, anyway, is just a hoping machine.

I love a good man outside the law, just as much as I hate a bad man inside the law.

Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.

Take it easy, but take it.

Was a great high wall there that tried to stop me. Was a great big sign there said private Property but on the back side it didn't say nothing. That side was made for you and me.

Life's pretty tough . . . you're lucky if you live through it.

There's several ways of saying what's on your mind. And in states and counties where it ain't too healthy to talk too loud, speak your mind, or even vote like you want to, folks have found other ways of getting the word around. One of the mainest ways is by singing.

The world is filled with people who are no longer needed -- and who try to make slaves of all of us -- and they have their music and we have ours.

One day we'll all find out that all of our songs was just little notes in a great big song!

Love is the only medicine I believe in.

Anyone who used more than three chords is just showing off.

All you can write is what you see.

As I went walking I saw a sign there And on the sign it said "No Trespassing." But on the other side it didn't say nothing, That side was made for you and me. This land is your land, this land is my land From California to the New York island From the Redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters This land was made for you and me.

Let me be known as just the man that told you something you already knew.

A folk song is what's wrong and how to fix it or it could be who's hungry and where their mouth is or who's out of work and where the job is or who's broke and where the money is or who's carrying a gun and where the peace is.

All about a human being is, it's a great big hoping machine.

I hate a song that makes you think that you are not any good. I hate a song that makes you think that you are just born to lose. Bound to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are too old or too young or too fat or too slim too ugly or too this or too that.

Life has a habit of not staying hitched. You got to ride it like you find it.