Charles Manson Quotes

“I can't judge any of you. I have no malice against you and no ribbons for you. But I think that it is high time that you all start looking at yourselves, and judging the lie that you live in.”

“Death is the greatest form of love.”

“I'm nobody. I'm a tramp, a bum, a hobo. I'm a boxcar and a jug of wine, and a straight razor if you get too close to me.”

“Look down at me and you see a fool; look up at me and you see a god; look straight at me and you see yourself.”

“The mind is endless. You put me in a dark solitary cell, and to you that's the end, to me it's the beginning, it's the universe in there, there's a world in there, and I'm free.”

“I lived in Hollywood and I had all that, the Rolls Royce and the Ferrari and the pad in Beverly Hills. I had the surf board and the Beach Boys and the bishkis and the Neil Diamond and the ramskam and the Jimmy shriffen [ph. ] and the Elvis Presley's best of bestlies and all them guys. The Dean and Martins and the Nancy Sinatras and the cops and sovereigns, "Will you do it to me? I hear you do it good honey" and all that kind of "Will you come up to my house later?" So I went through all that and I seen that was a bigger prison than the one I just got out of and I really didn't care to go back in prison. See, prison doesn't begin and end at the gate. Prison is in the mind. It's locked in one world that's dead and dying, or it's open to a world that's free and alive.”

“So how do communicate to a whole group of people? You stand up and take the worst fear symbol [swastika] and say "There, now I've got your fear. Now I've got your fear." And your fear is your power and your power is your control. I'm your king of this whole planet. I'm gonna rule this whole world.”

“Remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn't that give me equal right?”

“A baby is born into this world in a state of fear. Total paranoia and awareness. He sees the world with eyes not used yet. As he grows up, his parents lay all this stuff on him. They tell him, when they should be letting him tell them. Let the children lead you.”

“Rubin, I am not of your world. I've spent all my life in prison. When I was a child I was an orphan and too ugly to be adopted. Now I am too beautiful to be set free.”

“You people would convict a grilled cheese sandwich of murder and the people wouldn’t question it.”

“I've been 15 years in the nut ward, for trying to stop the trees from being cut down, from trying to rearrange the lifestyle of a bunch of people who don't want to change. But they're gonna change because a cold wind is blowing. You're gonna change or else there's going to be no life left on the planet Earth.”

“I wanna say this to every man that has a mind, to all the intelligent life forms that exist on this planet Earth. I wish the British would say this to the Scottish Rites and the Masons and all the people with minds who have degrees of knowledge, and who are aware of courts, laws, United Nations, governments.
In the 40s, we had a war, and all of our economies went towards this war effort. The war ended on one level, but we wouldn't let it end on the other levels. We kept buying and selling this war. I'm not locked in the penitentiary for crimes, I'm locked in the Second World War. I'm locked in the Second World War with this decision to bring to the World Court - there must be a One World Court, or we're all gonna be devoured by crime.
Crime, and the definition of crime comes from Nuremberg, when the judges decided that they wanted to call Second World War a crime. Honor and war is not a crime. Crime is bad. When you go to war and you're a soldier, and you fight for your God and your country, that's not criminal. That's honorable. That's what you must do to be a man. If you don't fight for your God and your country, you're not worth anything. If you have no honor, then you're not worth petty's pigs.
Truth is, we've got to overturn this decision that you made in the Second World War, or the Second World War will never end. Degrees of the war was written in Switzerland, in Geneva, at conferences that were made by the men at the tables, clearly stated that anyone in uniform would be given the respect of their rank and their uniforms. Then when the United States and got all the Germans in handcuffs, they started breaking their own rules. And they've been breaking their own rules ever since. War is not a crime, but if you judge war as a crime in a court room, then turn around: If 2 + 3 = 5, and 3 + 2 = 5; if you say war is a crime, then crime becomes your war. I am, by all standards, a prisoner of war.
I've been a prisoner of war since 1944 in Juvenile Hall, for setting a school building on fire in Indianapolis, Indiana. I've been locked up 45 years trying to figure out why I got to be a criminal. It matters not whether I want to be; you've got to keep criminals going to keep the war going because that's your economy, your whole economy is based on the war. You've got to get your dollar bills off the war, you've got your silver market sterling off of the war, you've got to take your gold and your diamonds off of the war - You've got to overturn that decision, that hung 6000 men by the neck.
You killed 6000 soldiers for obeying orders. It's wrong. And the world has got to accept that's wrong. When you accept you're wrong, and you say you're sorry for all the things you've done, then that will be a note on that court, and we'll have some harmony going on this planet Earth, now.”

“We as human beings can invoke the ground here called the United States of America. And the reason our system has perpetuated in such a way is because all the powers of Europe and England and monarchies and all those big people; we have come over here and started another world where each man in the United States has that power because he has that courtroom.”

“Maybe I should have killed four, five hundred people. Then I would have felt better. Then I would have felt like I really offered society something.”

“The real strong have no need to prove it to the phonies.”

“If I had a desire, it would be to be free from desire.”

“We're all our own prisons, we are each all our own wardens and we do our own time. I can't judge anyone else. What other people do is not really my affair unless they approach me with it. Prison's in your mind. Can't you see I'm free?”

“Total paranoia is just total awareness.”

“We`re not in Wonderland anymore, Alice.”

“In my mind's eye my thoughts light fires in your cities.”

“Now I am too beautiful to be set free.”

“Animals shouldn’t be hunted and nature shouldn’t be disturbed, even destroyed, to benefit the whims of mankind”

“I was so smart when I was a kid that I learnt that I was dumb fast.”

“You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody's crazy.”

“These children that come at you with knives--they are your children. You taught them. I didn't teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.”

“You got to realize; you're the Devil as much as you're God.”

“Pain's not bad, it's good. It teaches you things. I understand that.”

“If I wanted to kill somebody, I'd take this book and beat you to death with it, and I wouldn't feel a thing.”

“Progress? There's no such thing as progress. There's only change. You dig a hole in the ground, you build up a city, and you fight a war, and you call it progress?”

“Will of God.. whatever you wanna call it.. you call it Jesus, call it Mohammed, call it goobybob, call it nuclear mind, call it blow the world up, call it your heart. Whatever you wanna call it, it's still music to me. It's there. It's the will of life.”

“As long as there's hate in your heart, there'll be hate in the world. You can't fight for peace and you cannot capture freedom.”

“There's nothing wrong with being incompetent.… It just means you don't have to do as much.”

“Have you ever seen the coyote in the desert? Watching, tuned in, completely aware. Christ on the cross, the coyote in the desert — it’s the same thing, man. The coyote is beautiful. He moves through the desert delicately, aware of everything, looking around. He hears every sound, smells every smell, sees everything that moves. He’s in a state of total paranoia, and total paranoia is total awareness.”

“Pain's not bad. It's good. It teaches you things. Like when you put your hand in fire: Ow! You know not to do that again.”

“If you are going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy.”

“I know and understand you are much more than what I think you are but first I must deal with you the way I think you even if that's only my own thinking and not you.”

“Fear of vikings build castles.”

“Who do you think I am, girl? If you could pick all the words of the vocabulary that your mother taught you, who do you think I am? And this is only a couple hours, can you imagine what it would be like a couple days with me? I live a hundred years a day.”

“I'm probably one of the most dangerous men in the world if I want to be. But I never wanted to be anything but me.”

“Anything you see in me is in you. If you want to see a vicious killer, that's who you'll see, do you understand that? If you see me as your brother, that's what I'll be. It all depends on how much love you have. I am you, and when you can admit that, you will be free. I am just a mirror.”

“I've never killed anyone. I don't need to kill anyone. I think it. I have it here.”

“We use the word God. God hooks all the other words up. I'm the pope. I'm ten times the pope. I'm fifty times the pope. But I'm the pope in the hills and in the mountains.”

“Death is psychosomatic.”

“Money is a game. It's only real to the people who work for it. It's a monopoly game. It's a game of paper. It's all on paper.”

“I was a changed man when i got out last time, I learned ... I learned ... I learned my lesson well ...”

“... you know, it's like you think the second world war is over ... [the] second world war is not over ... d'you understand what i'm telling you ... th'second world war is not over.”

“I see blood in here every day, every day someone's getting shot, someone's getting cut, someone's getting beat ... i've lived in that all my life woman, that don't wrinkle up my forehead ... you can pile 100 dead bodies up in front of my cell and it don't set me to do nothing ...”