This brief article comprises 10 important and memorable by American poet and singer Jim Douglas Morrison, the legendary voice of the classic rock, psychedelic rock, and blues rock band The Doors (which also had a number of noteworthy jazz influences). The following quotes were taken from Goodreads which is a great online platform for finding the books that you need and/or want to read. Therefore, here are the 10 memorable and important quotes by a wonderful, intelligent, romantic, and charismatic poet and musician:
‘People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.’
‘The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first.’
‘Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.’
‘A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself-and especially to feel, or not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at any moment is fine with them. That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is.’
‘That’s what real love amounts to – letting a person be what he really is. Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending – performing. You get to love your pretence. It’s true, we’re locked in an image, an act – and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you’re trying to steal their most precious possession.’
‘Where’s your will to be weird?’
‘The future is uncertain but the end is always near.’
‘It may have been in pieces, but I gave you the best of me.’
‘Whoever controls the media, controls the mind.’
‘There are things known
and there are things unknown
and in between are the doors.’
This post was written in loving memory of the great sensitive American poet and singer Jim Douglas Morrison of The Doors, one of the most important intellectual voices of the American counterculture of the 1960s. Thank you for your very beautiful and touching music and poetry! Image source: Wikimedia Commons