Ben Harper quotes: the musician’s most popular quotes.
“Life is short and if you’re looking for extension, you had best do well. ‘Cause there’s good deeds and then there’s good intentions. They are as far apart as heaven and hell.”
“Life’s the longest picture you’re ever gonna take.”
“You have to do what you believe in.”
“Every man’s actions belong to him.”
“There’s something in everyone only they know.”
“Make sure the fortune that you seek is the fortune that you need.”
“Don’t let what you have to heal from blind you to how much there is to heal for.”
“Like a soldier standing long under fire, any change comes as a relief.”
“Hiding is not an option and you’re going to step out and you’re going to make mistakes. I’m going to look stupid. I’m going to say things I want to retract. I’m going to sing notes I wish I could have back. There’s just no getting around the stumble, but if you stumble enough times you’re going to fall off the edge and have no choice but to freakin’ fly.”
“Fearlessness, absolutely. Discipline. You also need open-minded creativeness that lets everything in. You never want to lose a word or a phrase, yet every one should count. Always the best language possible. And, finally, knowing when to leave it alone. Stop when it’s done.”
“Failure and fatherhood have kept me grounded throughout the high and low points of my career. All my musical successes have managed to stay grounded by my failures along the way.”
“Some things you have to let be lost. Some battles you have to leave unfought. Then the truth just wastes away in all we dare not say. And in all we can’t explain. But I faithfully remain.”
“It’s so hard to do and so easy to say but sometimes you just have to walk away.”
“All that we can’t say is all we need to hear.”
“You’re living life in real time and we’ve got a good amount of work to do for each other.”
“When you have everything, you have everything to lose.”
“You look like gold. I’ve been fooled before, but now I know I’ve made the mistake in the past. But now I, now I know the difference from gold and brass.”
“As long as someone else controls your history, the truth shall remain just a mystery.”
“Genetics do play a role in how you consciously or subconsciously manifest your true self.”
“I want to try to not be the child that had to go through too much too young. I want to be who I am now and not who I was then.”
“You’re definitely a different person at different stages in your life.”
“I’m really looking forward to, not more of the same, but a continual growth.”
“If I fall, I fall. I’ll rise up like anybody else.”
“I studied and obsessed over the music that moved me. In my early twenties I made it my life’s work to sit at the feet of as many legendary blues players that would take me in. I studied them as if my life depended on it. I looked at the world as clearly as I could at age 20, and nothing made as much sense to me as the blues. I took all that and applied it to my own material that I was writing at the time, filtered it through my own instincts, and that’s what ended up being my first album.”
“I never knew it was something I wanted to do for a living. I simply never thought it possible. I just knew I had to find a way to either survive by making music, or discipline myself to live so very simply, so that I could afford to make music the driving force in my life above all else.”
“I write songs and I sing them from the deepest part of my existence and I hope they connect with the deepest part of yours.”
“A lot of writing is just about interpreting silence with as much soul and soulfulness as you can. That soulfulness for me is where experience and imagination meet. Where rules and structure fall away and are replaced by learning what can’t be taught.”
“Music is the last true voice of the human spirit. It can go beyond language, beyond age, and beyond color straight to the mind and heart of all people.”
“Don’t be discouraged by writer’s block.”
“Of all the states of emotion I’ve ever been in, music takes me to the strongest state of emotion the quickest. Of any other sort of state of mind I’ve ever been in or been put in by any substance or circumstance, music brings me to an emotional state of being faster than anything I’ve ever known.”
“That happens every time I get behind a guitar, regardless of what I’m saying, ’cause music is freedom and being free is the closest I’ve ever felt to being spiritual.”
“I feel it strong in my heart and sing it and write it just because that’s a part of Ben Harper; that’s just a part of me, that makes me who I am.”
“It’s cool to have that much road behind me and still to this day feel like it’s all brand-new and the best is yet to come.”
“The best thing I’ve ever done is fall off a skateboard in public. I mean slam really hard. Skateboarding is by far the most humbling endeavor in my life. I owe a huge amount of my humility to skateboarding. Not the makes, but the falls. Don’t get me wrong, landing a skate move and playing a song well are nearly identical emotions for me. Those rare moments where you feel like you’re doing something you’re born to do with no compromise. But all the falls that it takes to earn the makes, all the sh*t you have to deal with to just sing your damn song—who you become out of that is what matters to me.”
“My choice is what I choose to do, and if I’m causing no harm, it shouldn’t bother you. Your choice is who you choose to be, and if you’re causin’ no harm, then you’re alright with me. If you don’t like my fire, then don’t come around, ’cause I’m gonna burn one down. Yes, I’m gonna burn one down. Herb the gift from the earth, and what’s from the earth is of the greatest worth. So before you knock it, try it first. Oh, you’ll see it’s a blessing and not a curse.”
“The spirit is what guides my life, and I’m humbly on my knees in thanks for guidance and direction every day. But God is not something to be preached, it’s something to be lived.”
“The good news is at this point as I get older, the load has gotten heavier but my shoulders have gotten wider because I’ve gotten happier so it’s a damn good thing.”
“I just want to keep doing what I feel.”
“I want to try to be who I am today, not who I was yesterday.”
“In my life I have been blessed. In my life I have been cursed. I have lived the best of times and I have suffered the worst. Do you know which road you’re traveling? Do you know where you want to be? With so many roads to travel, there’s just one can set you free.”
“If you’re gonna live, then live it up. If you’re gonna give, then give it up. If you’re gonna walk the Earth, then walk it proud. If you’re gonna say the word, you got to say it loud.”
“It turns out that there is something more magnificent than nature. It’s love. You can’t just say I love you, you have to live I love you.”
“What enables me to believe in anything is hope.”
“I’m more afraid of falling than I am of flying high. I’m not as scared of dying as I am of growing old.”
“Forever always seems to be around when it begins, but forever never seems to be around when it ends.”
“Every moral has a story, every story has an end. Every battle has its glory, and its consequence.”
“The world awakens on the run and will soon be earning with hopes of better days to come. It’s a morning yearning.”
