Jerome John “Jerry” Garcia was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his work as the lead guitarist and as a vocalist with the band the Grateful Dead, which came to prominence during the counterculture era in the 1960s. Wise Jerry Garcia quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
If you’re searching for the most inspiring quotes from musicians that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of powerful Jimi Hendrix quotes, famous Willie Nelson quotes, and Jim Morrison quotes.
Most Famous Jerry Garcia Quotes
What we’re thinking about is a peaceful planet. We’re not thinking about anything else. We’re not thinking about any kind of power. We’re not thinking about any kind of struggles. We’re not thinking about revolution or war or any of that. That’s not what we want. Nobody wants to get hurt. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life. A simple life, a good life. And think about moving the whole human race ahead a step, or a few steps. Jerry Garcia
What a long strange trip it’s been. Jerry Garcia
You need music, I don’t know why. It’s probably one of those Joe Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it. Jerry Garcia
Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. Jerry Garcia
You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t wanna know. Jerry Garcia
We’re like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice. Jerry Garcia
To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. Jerry Garcia
Nothing left to do but smile. Jerry Garcia
We’re like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice. Jerry Garcia
I read somewhere that 77 percent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I’m more intrigued by the 23 percent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves. Jerry Garcia
Too much of a good thing is just about right. Jerry Garcia
If the thunder don’t get ya then the lightning will. Jerry Garcia
Magic is what we do, music is how we do it. Jerry Garcia
Sometimes the lights all shining on me, other times I can barely see. Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it’s been. Jerry Garcia
Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us. Jerry Garcia
The sun will shine in my back door one day. Jerry Garcia
If we had any nerve at all, if we had any real balls as a society, or whatever you need, whatever quality you need, real character, we would make an effort to really address the wrongs in this society, righteously. Jerry Garcia
Done time in the lock up, done time on the streets. Done time on the upswing, and time in defeat. I know what I’m askin. I know it’s a lot. Just to say that I love you. Believe it or not. Jerry Garcia
You don’t want to be the best at what you do, you want to be the only one. Jerry Garcia
There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone. Jerry Garcia
Nothing left to do but smile. Jerry Garcia
Whistle through your teeth and spit cuz, it’s Alright. Jerry Garcia
Truth is something you stumble into when you think you’re going someplace else. Jerry Garcia
Don’t tell me this town ‘aint got no heart. Jerry Garcia
All I know is, if you listen to society, you’ll never get anywhere! Jerry Garcia
Hang me, oh, hang me, so I’ll be dead and gone. I wouldn’t mind hanging, boys, but you wait in jail so long. Jerry Garcia
To me, that’s the key thing, the pursuit of happiness. That’s the basic, ultimate freedom. Jerry Garcia
We’re sort of like the town whore that’s finally become an institution. We’re finally becoming respectable. Jerry Garcia
If you’re able to enjoy something, to devote your life to it or a reasonable amount of time and energy, it will work out for you. Jerry Garcia
For me, the lame part of the Sixties was the political part, the social part. The real part was the spiritual part. Jerry Garcia
Live life expecting the worst, hoping for the best, and living for the future! Jerry Garcia
A leaf of all colors plays a golden string fiddle To a double e waterfall over my back. Jerry Garcia
Constantly choosing the lesser of two evils is still choosing evil. Jerry Garcia
It’s not enough to be the best at what you do; you must be perceived as the only one who does what you do. Jerry Garcia
It’s pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counterculture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness. Jerry Garcia
If the thunder don’t get ya then the lightning will. Jerry Garcia
The great thing is the thing of being able to see things through many points of view. That’s enlarging. I mean, it saves you from ultimately from the boredom of having one point of view, like being locked in a room with nothing but your own point of view, your own references. Jerry Garcia
Once in a while, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look it right. Jerry Garcia
We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life, a simple life, a good life. Jerry Garcia
Every mind is at least as heavy of mine. Jerry Garcia
I read somewhere that 77 percent of all the mentally ill live in poverty. Actually, I’m more intrigued by the 23 percent who are apparently doing quite well for themselves. Jerry Garcia
You ain’t gonna learn what you don’t wanna know. Jerry Garcia
We’re involved in a society which is undergoing some really weird changes now. Jerry Garcia
You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only one who does what you do. Jerry Garcia
Music goes way back before language does. And music is like the key to a whole spiritual existence which this society doesn’t even talk about. We know it’s there. The Grateful Dead plays at religious services essentially. We play at the religious services of the new age. Everybody gets high, and that’s what it’s all about really. Getting high is a lot more real than listening to a politician. You can think that getting high actually did happen that you danced, and got sweaty, and carried on. It really did happen. I know when it happens. I know it when it happens every time. Jerry Garcia
All I know is, if you listen to society, you’ll never get anywhere! Jerry Garcia
America is still mostly xenophobic and racist. That’s the nature of America, I think. Jerry Garcia
If we had any nerve at all, if we had any real balls as a society, or whatever you need, whatever quality you need, real character, we would make an effort to really address the wrongs in this society, righteously. Jerry Garcia
You have to get past the idea that music has to be one thing. To be alive in America is to hear all kinds of music constantly radio, records, churches, cats on the street, everywhere music. And with records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it. Jerry Garcia
We would all like to be able to live an uncluttered life, a simple life, a good life. Jerry Garcia
Done time in the lock up, done time on the streets. Done time on the upswing, and time in defeat. I know what I’m askin. I know it’s a lot. Just to say that I love you. Believe it or not. Jerry Garcia
Run faster, jump higher, reach farther, and you’ll always win! Jerry Garcia
If the thunder don’t get ya then the lightning will. Jerry Garcia
Some things may work, but they definitely won’t work every time. Some things may work at various times. Jerry Garcia
What is life but being conscious? And good and evil are manifestations of consciousness. If you reject one, you’re not getting the whole thing that’s there to be had. Jerry Garcia
The alternate media are becoming important and viable alternatives to playing live. Records, videos, that kind of thing. They’re going to start to count for something. Because there’s only a limited amount of us time available to us. Jerry Garcia
We didn’t invent the Grateful Dead, the crowd invented the Grateful Dead. We were just in line to see what was going to happen. Jerry Garcia
You need to have many points of reference; many places to touch down and make contact with. Jerry Garcia
What we need is something, a definition of a human, starting from the ground up, so that the suitable moral structure that goes around it makes sense. The context has to come from the human first, rather than bits and pieces of fragments of old religion and all of the old moral superstructure, whatever it used to be. Jerry Garcia
The pursuit of happiness is such a large of concept. Jerry Garcia
There’s a need for a ritual and for real joy and real bliss. Real fun. Jerry Garcia
You have to get past the idea that music has to be one thing. To be alive in America is to hear all kinds of music constantly radio, records, churches, cats on the street, everywhere music. And with records, the whole history of music is open to everyone who wants to hear it. Jerry Garcia
You do not merely want to be considered just the best of the best. You want to be considered the only one who does what you do. Jerry Garcia
In folk music, I’ve always been fond of the fragment. The song that has one verse. And you don’t know anything about the characters, you don’t know what they’re doing, but they’re doing something important. I love that. I’m really a sucker for that kind of song. Jerry Garcia
The nature of what we’re doing is something, which is by its very nature, is non formulaic. There’s no way that you can make it happen by intention alone. It’s something that you have to sort of allow it to happen, and you have to allow for it to happen. Jerry Garcia
Listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul. Jerry Garcia
You can’t repeat things because each time is different. The universe has changed. Everything has changed. Jerry Garcia
It’s much too late to do anything about rock roll now. Jerry Garcia
I think The Grateful Dead kind of represents the spirit of being able to go out and have an adventure in America at large. Jerry Garcia
Hunter can write a melody and stuff like that, but his forte is lyrics. He can write a serviceable melody to hang his lyrics on, and sometimes he comes up with something really nice. Jerry Garcia
Everybody needs adventure, and everybody needs something to enlarge his or her lives. Jerry Garcia
For me, I think the only danger is being too much in love with guitar playing. The musıc is the most important thing, and the guitar is only the instrument. Jerry Garcia
Each person makes their own decision about what it is that is happening, whether they like it or don’t like it, whether they want to lend their energy to it or not or what, you know. Jerry Garcia
I mean, just because you’re a musician doesn’t mean all your ideas are about music. So every once in a while I get an idea about plumbing, I get an idea about city government, and they come the way they come. Jerry Garcia
Right now, America is under the gun. It’s being tested and is being co opted in a big way. Jerry Garcia
