Woody Guthrie Quotes

If you want to learn something, just steal it.

All of my words, if not well put nor well taken, are well meant.

Do Re Mi
California is a garden of Eden, a paradise to live in or see,
But believe it or not, you won't find it so hot
If you ain't got the do re mi

I’d give my life just to lay my head tonight on a bed of California stars

All of this talking about what’s up in the sky, or down in hell, for that matter, isn’t half as important as what’s right here, right now, right in front of your eyes. Things are tough. Folks broke. Kids hungry. Sick. Everything. And people has got to have more faith in one another, believe in each other. There’s a spirit of some kind we’ve all got. That’s got to draw us all together.

We’re to blame because we let them steal,” she told him.
“Let them? We caused ‘em to steal?”
“Yes. We caused them to steal. Penny at a time. Nickel at a time. Dime. A quarter. A dollar. We were easy going. We were good-natured. We didn’t want money just for the sake of having money. We didn’t want other folks’ money If it meant they had to do without. We smiled across their counters a penny at a time. We smiled in through their cages a nickel at a time. We handed a quarter out our front door. We handing them money along the street. We signed our names to their old papers. We didn’t want money, so we didn’t steal money, and we spoiled them, we petted them, and we humored them. We let them steal from us. We knew that they were hooking us. We knew it. We knew when they jacked up their prices. We knew when they cut down on the price of our work. We knew that. We knew they were stealing. We taught them how to steal. We let them. We let them think they they could cheat us because we are just plain old common everyday people. They got the habit.”
“They really got the habit,” Tike said.
“Like dope. Like whiskey. Like tobacco. Like snuff. Like morphine or opium or old smoke of some kind. They got the regular habit of taking us for damned old silly fools.”
House of Earth Woody Guthrie

All of my words, if not well put or well taken, are well meant.

I'm down here looking at the Potomac River; they say George Washington threw a silver dollar across it once. It looks a little bit too far for me to do that trick, but maybe he could. After all, a dollar went further in those days.

Then I got a little braver and made up songs telling what I thought was wrong and how to make it right, songs that said what everybody in the country was thinking. And this has held me ever since.

Yes, I’d give my life to lay my head tonight
On a bed of California stars

I better quit my talking now; I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go, I'm older than your old folks, and I'm younger than the young, And I'm about the biggest thing that man has ever done.

I'd better quit my talking, 'cause I told you all I know, But please remember, pardner, wherever you may go, The people are building a peaceful world, and when the job is done That'll be the biggest thing that man has ever done.

I'm just a lonesome traveler, The Great Historical Bum. Highly educated from history I have come. I built the Rock of Ages, 'twas in the Year of One And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done. I worked in the Garden of Eden, that was the year of two, Joined the apple pickers union, I always paid my due; I'm the man that signed the contract to raise the rising sun, And that was about the biggest thing that man had ever done

Nobody living can ever stop me As I go walking my freedom highway Nobody living can make me turn back This land was made for you and me.

When the sun came shining as I was strolling, And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, As the fog was lifting a voice come chanting: This land was made for you and me.