John Lennon citations célèbres
I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it. I'm sorry I opened my mouth. I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this.
en
Conférence de presse à Chicago, le 11 août 1966 en réponse et en excuses aux réactions outrées et violentes à travers les États-Unis suite à l’interview de l’Evening Standard.
“Dieu est un concept / Par lequel nous pouvons mesurer / Notre douleur”
God is a concept / By which we can measure / Our pain
en
John Lennon Citations
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 (there's no need). Please, don't spoil my day, I'm miles away/And after all I'm only sleeping.
Imagine there's no heaven / It's easy if you try / No hell below us / Above us only sky / Imagine all the peopleLiving for today... Imagine there's no countries / It isn't hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too / Imagine all the people / Living life in peace... Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can/No need for greed or hunger / In a brotherhood of man / Imagine all the people / Sharing all the world... You may say i'm a dreamer / But i'm not the only one / I hope some day you'll join us / And the world will be as one
en
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.
en
Propos recueillis par la journaliste britannique Maureen Cleave pour le périodique Evening Standard dans son édition du 4 mars 1966
On the next number, would those in the cheaper seats clap your hands ? All the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry!
en
Déclaration faite en annonce du titre Twist and Shout lors de la prestation des Beatles au «Royal Variety Performance» le 4 novembre 1963 au théâtre «Prince of Wales» de Londres devant la Reine Elisabeth, la Reine Mère, et la Princesse Margaret.
John Lennon: Citations en anglais
“They brought out LSD to control people, and what they did was give us freedom.”
Source: The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 179
Contexte: We must always remember to thank the CIA and the Army for LSD, by the way. Everything is the opposite of what it is, isn't it? They brought out LSD to control people, and what they did was give us freedom. Sometimes it works in mysterious ways its wonders to perform. But it sure as hell performs them. If you look a the government report book on acid, the only ones who jumped out of windows because of it were the ones in the Army. I never knew anybody who jumped out of a window or killed themselves because of it.
Interview on The David Frost Show (14 June 1969)
Contexte: We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war — all forms of violence. People just accept it and think 'Oh, they did it, or Harold Wilson did it, or Nixon did it,' they're always scapegoating people. And it isn't Nixon's fault. We're all responsible for everything that goes on, you know, we're all responsible for Biafra and Hitler and everything. So we're just saying "SELL PEACE" — anybody interested in peace just stick it in the window. It's simple but it lets somebody else know that you want peace too, because you feel alone if you're the only one thinking 'wouldn't it be nice if there was peace and nobody was getting killed.' So advertise yourself that you're for peace if you believe in it.
"God"
Lyrics, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970)
“You grow with music, or the music outgrows you.”
attributed to Lennon, but no verifiable source found
Disputed
“Ringo isn't even the best drummer in the Beatles.”
Often apocryphally and jokingly attributed to Lennon in an interview where he was asked whether fellow Beatle Ringo Starr was the best drummer in the world. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/john-lennon-ringo-best-drummer/
Misattributed
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.”
As quoted in Guitar Player (1 August 2004), and in "Pax Patter" at ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) http://www.abc.net.au/civics/rights/pax.htm
Variante: 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.
Royal Variety Performance in London (4 November 1963) attended by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret. Of this incident Mark Hertsgaard reports in A Day in the Life: The Music and Artistry of the Beatles (1995): "The remark provoked warm laughter and applause, and was greeted with profound relief by Beatles manager Brian Epstein, who had feared Lennon would make good on his pre-performance threat to tell them to "rattle their fuckin' jewelry."
“We all shine on… like the moon and the stars and the sun… we all shine on… come on and on and on…”
Variante: Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.
Source: Song Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)
“How can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing?”
Lyrics, Imagine (1971 album)
Variante: How can I give love when I don't know what it is I'm giving?
"How?" (song)
“I don't have any romanticism about any part of my past.”
Playboy interview (1980)
Contexte: I don't have any romanticism about any part of my past. I think of it only inasmuch as it gave me pleasure or helped me grow psychologically. That is the only thing that interests me about yesterday. I don't believe in yesterday, by the way. You know I don't believe in yesterday. I am only interested in what I am doing now.
“We're playing those mind games together
Pushing the barriers, planting seeds”
"Mind Games" — Video of Lennon's performance on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HotF1Qus6Bg - Performance by Kevin Spacey http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBEx2xHLDjE in Come Together: A Night for John Lennon's Words and Music (2001)
Lyrics, Mind Games (1973)
Contexte: We're playing those mind games together
Pushing the barriers, planting seeds
Playing the mind guerrilla
Chanting the mantra, Peace on Earth.
“I don't stand back and judge — I do.”
On talk of a Beatles re-union
Playboy interview (1980)
Contexte: It can never be again! Everyone always talks about a good thing coming to an end, as if life was over. But I'll be 40 when this interview comes out. Paul is 38. Elton John, Bob Dylan — we're all relatively young people. The game isn't over yet. Everyone talks in terms of the last record or the last Beatle concert — but, God willing, there are another 40 years of productivity to go. I'm not judging whether "I Am The Walrus" is better or worse than "Imagine." It is for others to judge. I am doing it. I do. I don't stand back and judge — I do.
Playboy interview (1980)
Contexte: It takes time to get rid of all this garbage that I've been carrying around that was influencing the way I thought and the way I lived. It had a lot to do with Yoko, showing me that I was still possessed. I left physically when I fell in love with Yoko, but mentally it took the last ten years of struggling. I learned everything from her. … It is a teacher-pupil relationship. That's what people don't understand. She's the teacher and I'm the pupil. I'm the famous one, the one who's supposed to know everything, but she's my teacher. She's taught me everything I fucking know. She's my Don Juan … a Don Juan doesn't have a following. A Don Juan isn't in the newspaper and doesn't have disciples and doesn't proselytize.
“Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the way…That's another piece of garbage.”
(Omitted from the original 1980 Playboy interview). Complete text of the interview in, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, 2000, David Sheff, G. Barry Golson, St. Martin's Griffin; , pp. 112-113. http://books.google.com/books?id=HL7X-YyrINUC&pg=PA112&dq=%22nor+do+i+think+we+came+from+monkeys%22&hl=en&ei=ob0STqL7H8T_sQKnjtjUDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22nor%20do%20i%20think%20we%20came%20from%20monkeys%22&f=false [Originally published in October 1981 as The Playboy Interviews with John Lennon and Yōko Ono]. http://books.google.com/books?id=UVYIAQAAMAAJ&q=%22nor+do+i+think+we+came+from+monkeys%22&dq=%22nor+do+i+think+we+came+from+monkeys%22&hl=en&ei=XsYSTpvQAaXksQLFi8WaCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAQ.Complete fragment available at EvolutionNews.org http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/john_lennon_darwin_doubter048051.html.
Playboy interview (1980)
Contexte: Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the way... That'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.
That and the monkey thing are both as insane as the other. I’ve nothing to base it on; it’s only a gut feeling. They always draw that progression-these apes standing up suddenly. The early men are always drawn like apes, right? Because that fits in the theory we have been living with since Darwin. I don't buy that monkey business. [Singing] "Too much monkey business..." [Laughing] I don' t buy it. I've got no basis for it and no theory to offer, I just don't buy it. Something other than that. Something simpler. I don't buy I've got no basis for it and no theory to offer, I just don't buy it. Something other than that. Something simpler. I don't buy anything other than "It always was and ever shall be." I can't conceive of anything less or more. The other theories change all the time. They set up these idols and then they knock them down. It keeps all the old professors happy in the university. It gives them something to do. I don't know if there's any harm in it except they ram it down everybody's throat. Everything they told me as a kid has already been disproved by the same type of "experts" who made them up in the first place.
As quoted in BBC interview with David Wigg (8 May 1969) http://web.archive.org/web/20080121033938/http://www.geocities.com/~beatleboy1/db1969.0508.beatles.html
Contexte: That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously, because I think our opposition, whoever they may be, in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humor. You know, and we are humorous, we are, what are they, Laurel and Hardy. That's John and Yoko, and we stand a better chance under that guise, because all the serious people, like Martin Luther King, and Kennedy, and Gandhi, got shot.
Statement to the press in July 1969 after the release of the Plastic Ono Band's single "Give Peace a Chance", as quoted in The Beatles: An Oral History by David Pritchard and Alan Lysaght (1998) New York: Hyperion. ISBN: 0786864362. OCLC: 39093547. p. 285.
Contexte: It was just a gradual development over the years. Last year was "All You Need Is Love." This year it's "Give Peace a Chance." Remember love. The only hope for any of us is peace. Violence begets violence. If you want to get peace, you can get it as soon as you like if we all pull together. You're all geniuses and you're all beautiful. You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace. Think peace, live peace, and breathe peace and you'll get it as soon as you like. Okay?
Declaration of Nutopia, co-signed with Yoko Ono, (1 April 1973); also published in the liner notes of Mind Games (1973)
Contexte: We announce the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA.
Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA.
NUTOPIA has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people.
NUTOPIA has no laws other than cosmic.
All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country.
As two ambassadors of NUTOPIA, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition in the United Nations of our country and our people.
John Lennon interview with Rolling Stone magazine (December 1970)
Contexte: When I was about twelve, I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody's noticed. Either I'm a genius or I'm mad, which is it? "No," I said, "I can't be mad because nobody's put me away; therefore I'm a genius." Genius is a form of madness and we're all that way. But I used to be coy about it, like me guitar playing. But if there's such a thing as genius — I am one. And if there isn't, I don't care.
One of the most controversial statements Lennon ever made, this was published in England's Evening Standard newspaper (4 March 1966) as part of an interview with writer Maureen Cleave.
Contexte: 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. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.
“We announce the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA.”
Declaration of Nutopia, co-signed with Yoko Ono, (1 April 1973); also published in the liner notes of Mind Games (1973)
Contexte: We announce the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA.
Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA.
NUTOPIA has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people.
NUTOPIA has no laws other than cosmic.
All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country.
As two ambassadors of NUTOPIA, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition in the United Nations of our country and our people.
News conference in Chicago, where he apologized for the above statement, which was accepted by the Vatican. (11 August 1966)
Contexte: I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it. I'm sorry I opened my mouth. I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this.
