Michael Franti Quotes

A lot of times we look at the whole world and think, 'it's so daunting, how can we change the whole world?' and you don't need to do that, what you need to do is change your world a little bit, and see if you can, through example, inspire others to do the same thing.

I've been in those relationships. You go through years of your life and at a certain point you wake up and you go, god, what am I doing here? What have I spent the last three years doing? Part of it is learning, this process you've gotta go through. You have to recognize the point at which you're not learning anymore, and be able to let it go.

Don't settle for something that's not great. Don't feel like having a relationship that is not serving your needs is more important than having a relationship with yourself.

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

The more I see, the less I know.

I believe that in order to tackle the big issues of the world today, like environmental issues, we need everybody's involvement. We need the resources of the corporate world. We need the cooperation of governments. We need the wisdom of indigenous people.

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.

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.

We only have X amount of days and time on this planet - how am I going to spend that time? The way that I want to spend it is caring about the people that I love the most, and fighting to make the world a more livable place for everybody.

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.

History shows that Americans believe in doing the right thing.

I have a passion to make a difference in the world. And that difference can be just making the fans at my show leave with a smile on their faces and feeling uplifted.

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.

I believe that through positive thoughts, speech, action and attitudes, we change things for the better.

I think the main thing I would say is, don't settle. Don't settle for something that's not great.

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.

The more places I go to, the more I realize I understand so little about the world.

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.

We don't have to be good, you know? No one's telling us that we have to do good things, but we do them because we know it makes other people feel good and it makes us feel good.

I drive a hybrid. It's a Ford Escape. That's my only car.

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.

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?'

I'm not an idealist. I know we're not going to be living in a world that's peace and love all the time. But we can live in a world where we kill each other a lot less.

Whenever people go out of their way to help other people - there's power and beauty in our diversity.

When we all see justice, then we'll all see peace!

Love is the action of soul satisfaction.

My yoga practice, I do it because when I get on my mat, I know I'm going to be transformed. I know that whatever stresses are in my life or whatever worries I have or whatever monkey mind is happening for me, when I get off the mat, I'm going to be transformed.

Having personal things in balance is more important than the other.

Television, the drug of the nation, breeding ignorance and feeding radiation ...

All the freaky people make the beauty of the world.

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.

It ain't about who ya love, it's all about do ya love.

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

The most difficult part for me is feeling connected to the people that I love but always being on the go to different places.

I took a trip in 2004, a year after the war started in Iraq. I played music on the streets of Baghdad for Iraqi civilians. I'd also play for U.S. soldiers at night when they were off duty in the bars. Then I would talk to people, and I would film them and ask them about their life and the conflict.

I think that the transformative nature of love is why we are so drawn to it.

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

Those who start wars never fight them, and those who fight wars never like them.

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

My goal has not ever been to change minds, my goal is to open minds.

My mother birthed three children and she adopted myself and another African-American son. My adoptive parents were Finnish. I grew up in a white picket neighborhood.

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.

It's never too late to start the day over.

I always know when a song is good or close to finished. When I sing it, it makes me feel the emotion. My tears will start flowing or I'll start laughing. I'll start feeling whatever intensity or emotion was the seed of that song.

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.

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

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.

I'm always trying to find optimistic ways to express myself.

The times when I feel not alive is when I feel stifled, when I feel like the emotion that's in me is not coming out. I'm too busy, too hectic. I'm serving my iPhone more than my spirit. Those are the times I feel bad.

When I first started, my songs were the politics of anger. As I got older and hopefully wiser, I wanted to be part of the politics of answers.

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

One of the things I love about yoga is that it brings you into the present moment. You aren't worried about what will happen tomorrow and you aren't thinking about what happened yesterday. It's about opening your heart and living from your heart.

When I first started out, I thought it was enough to make an angry song that pointed out the problems of the world.

Everyone deserves music.

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.

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 human interest, and the natural interest, and the spiritual interest of this planet need to begin to take a priority over the corporate interest, the military interest, and the materialistic interests.

I feel alive when I feel ease of heart.

I don't know if it's so grand that I can change the entire world, but I know that I can help one person. So that's the goal.

During my travels in Iraq, Israel, Gaza, Brazil, Indonesia, Japan, Europe and all over the United States, I have seen and heard the voices of people who want change. They want the stabilization of the economy, education and healthcare for all, renewable energy and an environmental vision with an eye on generations to come.

If you love the planet or the neighborhood - you're finding ways to satisfy the soul of the planet or satisfy the soul of the neighborhood.

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.

When someone can't afford to wear shoes, it's not just about them not having shoes on that day. It's about a cycle of poverty that exists within their community.

It was hard for me, as a father, to imagine going through what my birth mom went through, to raise a child inside of her for nine months, and then have to say goodbye. And so it's hard for me to understand that pain and that process.

I want to promote positivity.

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.

Music gets us in touch with our emotions in a way that's more intimate than any other art form.

Music is sunshine. Like sunshine, music is a powerful force that can instantly and almost chemically change your entire mood. Music gives us new energy and a stronger sense of purpose.

I've always wanted to be a communicator of ideas through music. Today, I wanna be the most effective musical communicator of social change I could be, so I try to find different ways to do it and I'm always challenging myself to find new things, learn new instruments. But I always try to find in my heart, what it is I really want to say with words.

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.

Sometimes, I feel like I can do anything, and, sometimes, I'm so alive, sometimes, I feel like I could zoom across the sky and, sometimes, I wanna cry.

It's that transformative nature of love and music and yoga that really inspires me.

The personal revolution is far more difficult, and is the first step in any revolution.

Every bit of land is a Holy land, and every drop of water is Holy water, and every single child is a son or a daughter of the one Earth mama, and the one Earth papa.

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.

Recording in Jamaica is like nothing else. The studios are always closed in America. But in Jamaica, the studio doors are wide open, and there's music blasting out in the street. You can see the reaction of people immediately.

Playing on the streets of Iraq, or in Israel or the Gaza strip, I'd sing angry protest songs against war. People would say, 'Make us clap, make us dance, and laugh and sing.' It really made me think about the importance of happy music.

Can't keep Love like money in the bank

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.

Be as radiant as the sun, as healing as the rain, as generous as a tree.

Don't let mistakes be so monumental, don't let your love be so confidential, don't let your mind be so darn judgemental, and please let your heart be more influential. Be thankful for all that the spirit provides and be thankful for all that you see without eyes.

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.

Music and yoga have a great synergy.

My mother and father took me in and provided everything for me - the love, nurturing, basic necessities - to give me the space to grow wings, so that when I went out into the world, I could fly.

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.

I think my soul is intact, but my methods of reaching people are completely different.

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.

Through music I either tame my demons or unleash them and allow them to be what they are. I don't want the music to be about provocation, I want the music to bring you to a place where you feel at home.

Life is too short to make just one decision, music is too loud for just one station, love is too big for just one nation, and God is too big for just one religion!

It shouldn't be a Republican or Democratic issue whether we take care of the environment. That should be a human issue.

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

You can bomb the world to pieces, but you can't bomb it into peace. Power to the peaceful.

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.

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.

I came up playing in both punk rock bands and hip-hop bands, and I found a more universal way of reaching people, especially with music that has a message to it.

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.

The U.S. has historically been the world's largest contributor to climate change.

The main thing is to be myself. What I mean by that is, to be honest when called upon to express your feelings. The other thing is - maybe this should come first - to be a good listener. To close your mouth and to listen, and to be able to echo back what your partner says to you.