Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by John Lennon (British Singer)

John Winston Lennon (1940–80) was an English rock legend, guitarist, and songwriter. He was the founding member of the Beatles, the most influential music band of the rock era. He wrote most of the Beatles songs in association with Paul McCartney.

A native of Liverpool, Lennon did not show much musical inclination as a child. He was smart but often got into trouble for his angry streak, petty crimes, and rebellious attitude.

At age 16, Lennon listened to Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other rock-and-roll legends whose records were brought over by American sailors docking at the Liverpool port. Fascinated by rock and roll music, Lennon formed his band with several friends and called it the Quarrymen.

Lennon met McCartney at a church party in the summer of 1957. They became fast friends after Lennon learned that McCartney could not only tune and play the guitar but also recall the lyrics of the latest rock and roll songs. The two formed a legendary songwriting partnership that composed 180 songs. After McCartney’s friend George Harrison joined them in 1958, they formed the Beatals, which they later renamed Silver Beetles and finally the Beatles. Drummer Pete Best enlisted in 1960.

The Beatles played at various clubs around England and in Hamburg, Germany. They then returned to England and played at Liverpool’s Cavern Club, where businessman Brian Epstein discovered them. After signing up as their manager, Epstein signed the Beatles with EMI records in 1962 and had drummer Pete Best replaced by Ringo Starr. By 1963, the Beatles were the most famous rock and roll band in England. The following year, they took America by storm with their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. ‘Beatlemania’ swept across Europe and America.; the Beatles’ every movement was sure to be accompanied by crowds of screaming young girls and enthusiastic admirers.

Lennon was the Beatles’ most controversial member. His 1966 statement, “The Beatles are bigger than Jesus Christ,” instigated a religious counterattack in the United States. During the later 1960s, he used his celebrity to draw attention to various political causes and feminism. His vehement denunciation of the Vietnam War resulted in a protracted—but unsuccessful—effort by the Nixon administration to deport him from his adopted hometown of New York. His single “Give Peace a Chance” became the anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969.

Lennon married Japanese-American artist Yoko Ono in 1969. When the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Lennon embarked on a successful solo career. After the birth of their son Sean Ono Lennon in 1975, Lennon retired from public life and stayed home with family.

In 1980, Lennon was assassinated by a mentally disturbed fan who had asked Lennon for his autograph only hours earlier. A few days later, Ono organized over 100,000 people gathered in New York’s Central Park and thousands of others around the world to observe a 10-minute silence to honor him. A section of Central Park is designated “Strawberry Fields” in his memory.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by 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
Topics: Twentieth Century

Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.
—John Lennon
Topics: Christianity, Religion

It just was a gradual development over the years. I mean last year was ‘all you need is Love.’ This year, it’s ‘all you need is Love and peace, baby.’ Give peace a chance, and remember Love. The only hope for us is peace. Violence begets violence. You can have peace as soon as you like if we all pull together. 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. 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
Topics: Peace

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.
—John Lennon
Topics: Truth

And so this is Xmas for black and for white, for yellow and red, let’s stop all the fight.
—John Lennon
Topics: Race, Racism

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
Topics: Religion, Christianity, Christians

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? Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
—John Lennon
Topics: Imagination, Reality, Belief

Work is life, you know, and without it, there’s nothing but fear and insecurity.
—John Lennon
Topics: Work

Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? All the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewellery.
—John Lennon
Topics: Humor

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.
—John Lennon
Topics: Television

The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars peace, love, hate, all that. Unknown is what it is. Accept that it’s unknown, and it’s plain sailing.
—John Lennon
Topics: Fear, Uncertainty, Acceptance, Doubt

My role in society, or any artist 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
Topics: The Artist

I resent performing for frisking idiots who don’t know anything.
—John Lennon
Topics: Music

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.
—John Lennon
Topics: Religion, God

You can’t cheat kids. If you cheat them when they’re children they’ll make you pay when they’re sixteen or seventeen by revolting against you or hating you or all those so-called teenage problems. I think that’s finally when they’re old enough to stand up to you and say, ‘What a hypocrite you’ve been all this time. You’ve never given me what I really wanted, which is you’.
—John Lennon
Topics: Children

Rituals are important. Nowadays it’s hip not to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.
—John Lennon
Topics: Marriage

People think the Beatles know what’s going on. We don’t. We’re just doing it.
—John Lennon
Topics: Ignorance

You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
—John Lennon
Topics: Peace

If The Beatles or the 60’s had a message, it was ‘Learn to swim. And once you’ve learned – swim!’
—John Lennon

Always remember this: ‘A kiss will never miss, and after many kisses a miss becomes a misses’.
—John Lennon
Topics: Kiss

Nobody controls me. I’m uncontrollable. The only one who can control me is me, and that’s just barely possible. And that’s the lesson I’m learning. If someone’s going to impress me, whether it be a Maharishi or a Yoko, then there comes a point where the emperor has no clothes ’cause I’m naive, but I’m not stupid. For all you folks out there who think I’m having the wool pulled over my eyes, well, that’s an insult to me. But if you think you know me, or you have some part of me because of the music, and then you think I’m being controlled like a dog on a leash because I do things with her, then screw you, brother or sister, you don’t know what’s happening. I’m not here for you, I’m here for me and her, and now the baby.
—John Lennon
Topics: Control

When you’re thirty-five, you can’t take as much booze … and I always got a little violent on drink…So it was kind of self-destructive suicide side of me, which is resolving itself for the better, I believe, because I never enjoyed it…
—John Lennon
Topics: Drinking

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
Topics: Twentieth Century

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
Topics: Meaning, Purpose

Everything is clearer when you’re in love.
—John Lennon
Topics: Love

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
Topics: Insanity, Madness

I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love.
—John Lennon
Topics: Money

I’ve had the boyhood thing of being Elvis. Now I want to be with my best friend, and my best friend’s my wife. Who could ask for anything more?
—John Lennon
Topics: Marriage, Husbands

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
Topics: Drugs

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
Topics: World, Peace

Wondering Whom to Read Next?

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *