Joan Baez
Full Name: Joan Chandos Baez
Birthdate: January 9, 1941
Birthplace: Staten Island, New York, USA
Occupation: Activist, Folk Singer, and Songwriter
Profile: Influential figure in the 1960's folk scene. Human rights and peace advocate.
Website: http://www.joanbaez.com
Number of Quotes: 44
Action is the antidote to despair.
As we know, forgiveness of oneself is the hardest of all the forgivenesses.
Don’t confuse having a career with having a life.
During the ballad
years for me, the politics was latent; I was just falling
in love with the ballads and my boyfriend. And there was the beauty of the songs.
Hypothetical questions get hypothetical answers.
I came to a nonviolence position through a gradual process.
I didn't go through the routine of singing in small clubs and doing open mics and
working so hard the way a lot of people do and did. It was just an overnight kind of thing.
I have hope in people, in individuals. Because you don't know what's going to rise from the ruins.
I have never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it?
I see a young man playing Plaisir d'Amour
on guitar. I knew I didn't want to go to college; I was
already playing a ukulele, and after I saw that, I was hooked. All I wanted to do was play guitar and sing.
I spend a lot of time with Buddhists. I'm not a Buddhist, but their relationship with death interests me.
I think music has the power to transform people, and in doing so, it has the power to transform situations—some large and some small.
I think the term non-violent
is much more positive, since it says we are non-violent against other people.
I'm lucky to have met so many people who have been involved in peace and who have been peace prize winners.
I'm not a folksinger. I'm a journalist's nightmare.
I've never been an optimist.
I've never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it?
If it's natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how?
If people have to put labels on me, I'd prefer the first label to be human being, the second label to be pacifist, and the third to be folk singer.
If you're gonna sing meaningful songs, you have to be committed to living a life that backs that up.
Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men - bring them softness, teach them how to cry.
It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do with
the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on the page.
Mostly what I listen to when I turn on my little iPod is opera.
My dread is for my show to be a nostalgia act. So the key to it is how do we keep it fresh?
My father was a physicist and also an activist. My first public protest was with my dad at Stanford. I came by all that honestly.
Nonviolence is a flop. The only bigger flop is violence.
Only you and I can help the sun rise each coming morning. If we don't, it may drench itself out in sorrow.
Peace might sell, but who's buying?
People say I'm such a pessimist, but I always was. It never stopped me from doing what I had to do. I would say I'm a realist.
Someone had to change the world. And obviously I was the one for the job.
That's all nonviolence is - organized love.
The answer is never the answer. What's really interesting is the mystery...
The easiest kind of relationship for me is with ten thousand people. The hardest is with one.
The foundation of my beliefs is the same as it was when I was 10. Non-violence.
The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.
The longer you practice nonviolence and the meditative qualities of it that you
will need, the more likely you are to do something intelligent in any situation.
The older I get, the more I'm conscious of ways very small things can make a change.
The only thing that's been a worse flop than the organization of non-violence has been the organization of violence.
That's all nonviolence is—organized love.
War is obsolete. It's just that men haven't evolved to that knowledge yet.
We all have to be told to grow up at different times in our lives. It happens to me still.
We were raised with that discussion about violence and non-violence, and we all pretty much
came up on the side of non-violence. That became my foundation with politics and my livelihood.
You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now.
You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy.
Last on Earth
