Phil Ochs Quotes (16 Quotes)

There is an urgent need for Americans to look deeply into themselves and their actions, and musical poetry is perhaps the most effective mirror available. Every newspaper headline is a potential song.

God isn't dead - he's just missing in action.

Does defending liberalism leave you friendless and perhaps wondering about your breath?

Smoking marijuana is more fun than drinking beer.

When they show the destruction of society on color TV, I want to be able to look out over Los Angeles and make sure they get it right.

The final story, the final chapter of western man, I believe, lies in Los Angeles.

It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the act of struggle itself, not what you win.

Leave the old and dying America and use your creative energies to help form a new America, which would be de-militarized, more humanistic, where the police are less hostile and closer to the community, where the wealthy are not given unleashed power for the exploitation of the people.

The fortunes of the entire world may well ride on the ability of young Americans to face the responsibilities of an old America gone mad.

Step outside the guidelines of the official umpires and make your own rules and your own reality.

Beneath the greatest love lies a hurricane of hate.

Even though you can't expect to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make that attempt. That's morality, that's religion. That's art. That's life.

Leaving America is like losing twenty pounds and finding a new girlfriend.

And if there's any hope for America, it lies in a revolution, and if there's any hope for a revolution in America, it lies in getting Elvis Presley to become Che Guevara.

In such ugly times, the only true protest is beauty.

I can spare a dime, brother, but in these morally inflationary times, a dime goes a lot farther if it's demanding work rather than adding to the indignity of relief.