John Lennon Inspirational Quotes: A Timeless Collection of Wisdom and Peace

"All you need is love."

- The Beatles

"All we are saying is give peace a chance."

- John Lennon

"Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one."

- John Lennon

"Love is all you need."

- The Beatles

"We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."

- John Lennon

"It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it matters only that you love."

- John Lennon

"You’re all geniuses, and you’re all beautiful. You don’t need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are."

- John Lennon

"You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one."

- John Lennon

"A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality."

- Yoko Ono

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life."

- John Lennon

"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."

- John Lennon

"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace."

- John Lennon

"If you want peace, you won’t get it with violence."

- John Lennon

"There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance."

- John Lennon

"Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end."

- John Lennon

"You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!"

- John Lennon

"We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it."

- John Lennon

"Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away."

- John Lennon

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

- John Lennon

"Life is what happens to you, While you're busy making other plans."

- John Lennon

"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."

- John Lennon

"Love is the flower you've got to let grow."

- John Lennon

"God is a concept by which we measure our pain."

- John Lennon

"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."

- John Lennon

"I'm not claiming divinity. I've never claimed purity of soul. I've never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can... But I still believe in peace, love and understanding."

- John Lennon

"You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!"

- John Lennon

"If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal."

- John Lennon

"Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you've got to let it grow."

- John Lennon

"We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it."

- John Lennon

"Get out there and get peace, think peace, and live peace and breathe peace, and you’ll get it as soon as you like."

- John Lennon

"You’re just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate."

- John Lennon

"When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is non-violence and humor."

- John Lennon

"Trying to please everybody is impossible – if you did that, you’d end up in the middle with nobody liking you. You’ve just got to make the decision about what you think is your best, and do it."

- John Lennon

"I hope someday you will join us, and the world will be as one."

- John Lennon

"If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the 60s, that’s a problem. Peace and love are eternal."

- John Lennon

"THEY, whoever they are, don't stand a chance because they can't beat love."

- John Lennon

"If everyone could just be happy with themselves and the choices people around them make, the world would instantly be a better place!"

- John Lennon

"Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear."

- John Lennon

"I’m not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I’ve always been a freak. So I’ve been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I’m one of those people."

- John Lennon

"I can’t wake you up. You can wake you up. I can’t cure you. You can cure you."

- John Lennon

"What we’ve got to do is keep hope alive. Because without it we’ll sink."

- John Lennon

"My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all."

- John Lennon

"I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?"

- John Lennon

"Happiness is just how you feel when you don’t feel miserable."

- John Lennon

"Declare it. Just the same way we declare war. That is how we will have peace… we just need to declare it."

- John Lennon

"Produce your own dream. It’s quite possible to do anything, but not if you put it on the leaders and the parking meters."

- John Lennon

"Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears."

- John Lennon

"A mistake is only an error, it becomes a mistake when you fail to correct it."

- John Lennon

"Nobody controls me. I’m uncontrollable. The only one who controls me is me, and that’s just barely possible."

- John Lennon

"I don’t believe in killing whatever the reason!"

- John Lennon

"When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind."

- John Lennon

"I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence."

- John Lennon

"I've always been politically minded and against the status quo."

- John Lennon

"If someone thinks that peace and love are just a cliche that must have been left behind in the '60s, that’s a problem. Peace and love are eternal."

- John Lennon

"When you do something beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun, every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps."

- John Lennon

"Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but it’ll always get you the right ones."

- John Lennon

"It’s weird not to be weird."

- John Lennon

"There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be…"

- John Lennon

"There are no problems, only solutions."

- John Lennon

"Only by trying on other people’s clothes do we find what size we are."

- John Lennon

"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted."

- John Lennon

"When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

- John Lennon

"Everything is clearer when you're in love."

- John Lennon

"You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die."

- John Lennon

"You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all down to you, mate."

- John Lennon

"Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun."

- John Lennon

"I don't believe in killing whatever the reason!"

- John Lennon

"The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility."

- 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 it."

- John Lennon

"My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all."

- John Lennon

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."

- John Lennon

"We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight."

- John Lennon

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it."

- John Lennon

"It’s better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out."

- John Lennon

"There's no other time but the present. Anything else is a waste of time."

- John Lennon

"The only way to deal with critics is to go over their heads direct to the public."

- John Lennon

"Everything is as important as everything else."

- John Lennon

"One thing you can’t hide – is when you’re crippled inside."

- John Lennon

"There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known."

- John Lennon

"Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realized that the imagery in my mind wasn’t insanity. Surrealism to me is reality."

- John Lennon

"I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong."

- John Lennon

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

- John Lennon

"The more real you get, the more unreal the world gets."

- John Lennon

"A genius is a form of madness, and we’re all that way, you know."

- John Lennon

"Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted."

- John Lennon

"Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream."

- John Lennon

"I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong."

- John Lennon

"The more I see the less I know for sure."

- John Lennon

"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it."

- John Lennon

"It doesn't matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I'm a woman or a man."

- John Lennon

"There's nothing you can know that isn't known."

- John Lennon

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

- John Lennon

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."

- John Lennon

"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?"

- John Lennon

"I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people."

- John Lennon

"We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow's nest of that ship."

- John Lennon

"Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war - for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I'd say we deserve ours more."

- John Lennon

"How can I go forward when I don’t know which way I’m facing?"

- John Lennon

"Art is only a way of expressing pain."

- John Lennon

"Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground."

- John Lennon

"It's better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out."

- John Lennon

"I like rock and roll, man, I don’t like much else."

- John Lennon

"I no longer believe in myth, and Beatles is another myth. The dream is over."

- John Lennon

"For those of you in the cheap seats I’d like ya to clap your hands to this one; the rest of you can just rattle your jewelry!"

- John Lennon

"The Beatles gave everything they had to give, and more. Going back to the Beatles would be like going back to school."

- John Lennon

"We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity."

- John Lennon

"The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?"

- John Lennon

"The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you."

- John Lennon

"Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground."

- John Lennon

"These critics with the illusions they've created about artists - it's like idol worship. They only like people when they're on their way up... I cannot be on the way up again."

- John Lennon

"He didn't come out of my belly, but my God, I've made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I'm so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride."

- 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

"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

"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity."

- John Lennon

"Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem."

- John Lennon

"Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

- John Lennon

"It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?"

- John Lennon

"Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry."

- John Lennon

"If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'."

- John Lennon

"I believe time wounds all heels."

- John Lennon

"I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity."

- John Lennon

"Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality."

- John Lennon

"As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot."

- John Lennon

"And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he's no longer God... They'll turn on him, and I hope he survives it."

- John Lennon

"Rituals are important. Nowadays it's hip not to be married. I'm not interested in being hip."

- John Lennon

"The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred on me. However, few escape that distinction."

- John Lennon