Top 55 Michael Franti Quotes

My parents said sticks and stones will break your bones but names will never hurt you. But I always felt a sense of exhilaration after a fight; it was the names that really hurt me.

Investing now in safe-guarding people by helping them to adapt to climate change, will help save money and lives while building resilience.

Johnny Cash was a rebel, not only just in the musical sense, but he was somebody who was for the people, and an advocate for labor, for workers, for prisoners, people who have been trapped by the criminal justice system.

I have a desire that I want to make people feel happy through my music. I’m always trying to find optimistic ways to express myself.

My mother, she made sure all of us were treated the same and had the same opportunity to grow and develop, so that when we left the house, we could fly on our own. And she also knew when we got out into the world, we’d treat others that we came across with that same treatment and respect.

We would play songs live on stage, and then we’d watch their reaction we were receiving immediately, if people were dancing and singing along. If they weren’t, then we’d go into the dressing rooms of the different NBA teams that we were playing in their arenas, and we’d change the songs right there.

Many kids in foster homes have a lot of emotions that are hard to get out. It’s important to let them know they can make a difference in the community.

We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can’t bomb it into peace.

I always identified with that feeling of being an underdog. So I always was looking to connect with and meet people from other cultures, to experience people living a different life that I am.

There are so many things to be worried about, and I wanted to make a record that people could put on, and it would lift them up the way the sun did for me each day.

In the ’80s, Ronald Reagan inspired me to become politicized, because I grew up in that era when everything I cared about was under attack.

No life’s worth more than any other, no sister worth less than any brother.

It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, gay, straight, come from different countries, different language… every single person is significant and is meaningful.

I try to use the attention that I get to help and to serve, and that’s really what I’d see as my work – to serve my community, serve the planet, serve my family. And I think a celebrity is someone who draws the attention on themselves, and then it kind of stops there.

I really encourage people to travel so we can see how the rest of the world views our country. That’s really important. Secondly, as artists, activists, and citizens who vote, we have to begin to vote from our heart.

To sit back and say, ‘Oh, we’re going to let the government do whatever they want, right or wrong,’ is giving up.

History shows that Americans believe in doing the right thing.

I don’t know if music can change the world overnight but I know that music can help someone make it through a difficult night.

With all the people hating and hurting each other, I don’t understand how people could get upset about people of the same sex caring for each other.

Every single soul is a poem.

I eat bags and bags of cashews. I’ve got them in the kitchen, and about ten feet away I’ve got another bowl on the kitchen table. In my backpack, I’ve always got a bag of cashews. I started eating them in the airports because that’s the one food that you can find in every airport that’s actually nutritious.

Like sunshine, music is a powerful force that can instantly and almost chemically change your entire mood.

You learn a lot when you’re barefoot. The first thing is every step you take is different.

Today we are in a war against war – music is our power.

I’d play music on the street, especially in developing nations where a lot of kids couldn’t wear shoes. In order to relate with kids that would be following me barefoot, I would take off my shoes, and they would all laugh at me because I couldn’t go three steps without wincing.

I’m a news junkie who’s constantly reading newspapers and magazines. I look around and see what’s happening in the world.

Collectively, we activists are essential to advancing U.S. policy to help empower marginalized people to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty for good.

‘Star Wars’ is mythology. It’s like Greek mythology or Shakespeare. It’s the story of good versus evil over a very long span of time. The storytelling is universal and timeless.

Everybody’s opinion is equally valid, and I feel like everybody should have an opportunity to speak out, and everyone should have the courage to speak out.

My favorite band of all time is The Clash. The thing I love about The Clash is they started out as guys who could barely play three chords. They dabbled in reggae, punk, rap, jazz. They came to a sound that could only be defined as The Clash. It was impossible to say what it was. I admire them for that.

In Jamaica, the music is recorded for the sound system, not the iPod. It’s about experiencing music together, with other people.

Music gives us new energy and a stronger sense of purpose.

You get everything you could have ever wished for if you’re willing to give that eternal bliss away to somebody else, to give it back.

Not all artists have a responsibility to be socially or politically aware, but they do have a responsibility to make great art. They have to find some truth and put that in their music.

The way the music comes to you starts to affect how you listen to music. When you’re a kid, it’s ‘Does it rock? Does it make me feel good? Does it make me tap my feet? Does it make me go to sleep?’

My house was filled with music. We had a piano, and my brothers and sisters played instruments. Even though I was around it, I played basketball.

The corporate media is there to push the agenda of the sponsors, and many of those sponsors are weapons manufacturers. So it stands to reason that you won’t get a diversity of opinions on television.

After a show, I’ll get the 16-year-old white kid whose lip is pierced, his head is shaved and his parents hate him, and the young gangster from the screwed-up ‘hood, and they say that now they realize there’s someone out there who thinks like they do.

People worry that gas prices are high and how they are affecting their pocket book. But they want to know about renewable energy. People are really starting to question things, and that’s made people look to the future in a positive way.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is just to stay human.

I think that fear comes about when there’s things in the world that we want to change, things we’re scared or angry about, and we can’t change them, and so we become fearful; we develop anxiety.

It’s a really personal thing for me to write a song.

I really believe that, as an artist, my opportunity to help to bring about awakening is one that should come from a personal process that someone has, and not from me telling somebody that this is the way it is.

I went to the University of San Francisco on an athletic scholarship. I didn’t study in high school. I was just there to get by and to play basketball. But a funny thing happened to me when I got to college. I got challenged by the work and the professors.

Power to the peaceful!

Music has the power to bring people together like no other art form.

My greatest sense of accomplishment has come from having two amazing sons, but it’s also a paradox in that the times when I felt like the biggest failure have been times when I felt like, as a parent, I wasn’t making the right decisions or succeeding in the way that I should.

When you’re in Jamaica, unless you’re in a tourist spot, you don’t hear Bob Marley; you mostly hear dance hall music.

Jamaica’s a country of great dichotomy. On the one hand you have a tourist industry with great beaches and resorts, but on the other you have such great poverty and the violence that goes along with that.

Our country was founded on immigration. We are all occupying Native American land here. At what point do we say ‘It’s our land, and nobody else can come here.’

Bonnaroo has kind of become the granddaddy of all American festivals. The thing I love about it most is that it wasn’t born out of picking the top ten bands off the Billboard chart and creating a festival around it.

All the freaky people make the beauty of the world.

I’ve always found that the poorer the places that I go, the more smiles I see, and the more happiness I see.

If we do not change our negative habits toward climate change, we can count on worldwide disruptions in food production, resulting in mass migration, refugee crises and increased conflict over scarce natural resources like water and farm land. This is a recipe for major security problems.

My music is part of the quest I have to find new ways of telling stories, and also, I want to inspire people.