108 Classical Johnny Cash Quotes That Still Bring A Smile

Imagine a wise man who was never afraid to be different, and you’ve got Johnny Cash. His worldview and philosophy influenced his music and acting career while staying closely connected to God.

While he died on the 12th of September, 2003, his name is still very popular around the world. Even Generation Y knows Johnny Cash and the joy he brought their parents and grandparents, even if they weren’t quite into country and western music.

I hope these quotes by Johnny Cash can bring a smile to your face as they have for me.

1. The ones that you’re calling wild are going to be the leaders in a little while.

Johnny Cash

2. The gospel of Christ must always be an open door with a welcome sign for all.

Johnny Cash

3. I’m very shy really. I spend a lot of time in my room alone reading or writing or watching television.

Johnny Cash

4. She’s the greatest woman I have ever known. Nobody else, except my mother, comes close.

Johnny Cash

5. All your life, you will be faced with a choice. You can choose love or hate…I choose love.

Johnny Cash

6. You’ve got to know your limitations. I don’t know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren’t too many limitations, if I did it my way.”

Johnny Cash

7. You miss a lot of opportunities by making mistakes, but that’s part of it: knowing that you’re not shut out forever, and that there’s a goal you still can reach.

Johnny Cash

8. Because you are mine, I walk the line.

Johnny Cash

9. I found out that there weren’t too many limitations, if I did it my way.

Johnny Cash

10. There’s no way around grief and loss: you can dodge all you want, but sooner or later you just have to go into it, through it, and, hopefully, come out the other side. The world you find there will never be the same as the world you left.

Johnny Cash

11. Somehow there’s been an immediate bonding between total strangers. We share each other’s triumphs, and when one of us gets hurt, we all bleed – it’s corny, I know, but it’s true.

Johnny Cash

12. Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money.

Johnny Cash

13. That was the big thing when I was growing up, singing on the radio. The extent of my dream was to sing on the radio station in Memphis. Even when I got out of the Air Force in 1954, I came right back to Memphis and started knocking on doors at the radio station.

Johnny Cash

14. The only really frightening thing about Cinnamon Hill belongs in the realm of the living and serves to remind me that some of them-just a few of them, a tiny minority-are much more dangerous than all the dead put together.

Johnny Cash

15. There’s no more simple life with simple choices for the young.

Johnny Cash

16. Loneliness is emptiness, but happiness is you.

Johnny Cash

17. My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don’t ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father.

Johnny Cash

18. You still fascinate and inspire me… You’re the object of my desire, the number one Earthly reason for my existence. I love you very much.

Johnny Cash

19. We’re all in this together if we’re in it at all.

Johnny Cash

20. I’m not really concerned about boundaries. I just follow my conscience and my heart. Follow your heart. That’s what I do. Compassion is something I have a lot of, because I’ve been through a lot of pain in my life. Anybody who has suffered a lot of pain has a lot of compassion.

Johnny Cash

21. However, neither he nor anyone else could have become the star Elvis was. Ain’t nobody like Elvis. Never was.

Johnny Cash

22. The taste of love is sweet when heart like ours meet.

Johnny Cash

23. This business I’m in is different. It’s special. The people around me feel like brothers and sisters. We share each other’s triumphs, and when one of us gets hurt, we all bleed – it’s corny, I know, but it’s true. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. It’s great. It turns up the heat in life.

Johnny Cash

24. I learn from my mistakes. It’s a very painful way to learn, but without pain, the old saying is, there’s no gain.

Johnny Cash

25. There’s a lot of things blamed on me that never happened. But then, there’s a lot of things that I did that I never got caught at.

Johnny Cash

26. Life and love go on, let the music play.

Johnny Cash

27. There’s unconditional love there. You hear that phrase a lot but it’s real with me and her [June Carter]. She loves me in spite of everything, in spite of myself. She has saved my life more than once. She’s always been there with her love, and it has certainly made me forget the pain for a long time, many times. When it gets dark and everybody’s gone home and the lights are turned off, it’s just me and her.

Johnny Cash

28. Creative people have to be fed from the divine source. I have to get fed. I had to get filled up in order to pour out.

Johnny Cash

29. We’re soulmates, friends and lovers, and everything else that makes a happy marriage. Our hearts are attuned to each other, and we’re very close.

Johnny Cash

30. Beneath the stains of time the feeling disappears, you are someone else I am still right here.

Johnny Cash

31. And I’d be dead , but by God’s grace Drive on, don’t mean nothin’ My children love me, but they don’t understand And I got a woman who knows her man Drive on, don’t mean nothin’, drive on.

Johnny Cash

32. Jesus will not fail me, I shall not be moved.

Johnny Cash

33. You’ve got a song you’re singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut. And you’ve got to make them think that you’re one of them sitting out there with them too. They’ve got to be able to relate to what you’re doing.

Johnny Cash

34. I wear black because I’m comfortable in it. But then in the summertime when it’s hot I’m comfortable in light blue.

Johnny Cash

35. I’m not bitter. Why should I be bitter? I’m thrilled to death with life.”

Johnny Cash

36. Everybody was wearing rhinestones, all those sparkly clothes, and cowboy boots. I decided to wear a black shirt and pants and see if I could get by with it. I did and I’ve worn black clothes ever since.

Johnny Cash

37. I took the easy way, and to an extent I regret that. Still, though, the way we did it was honest. We played it and sang it the way we felt it, and there’s a lot to be said for that.

Johnny Cash

38. I was wearing black clothes almost from the beginning. I feel comfortable in black. I felt like black looked good onstage, that it was attractive, so I started wearing it all the time.

Johnny Cash

39. I don’t have Paul’s calling – I’m not out there being all things to all men to win them for Christ – but sometimes I can be a signpost. Sometimes I can sow a seed. And post-hole diggers and seed sowers are mighty important in the building of the Kingdom.

Johnny Cash

40. God gives us life and takes us away as He sees fit.

Johnny Cash

41. People call me wild. Not really though, I’m not. I guess I’ve never been normal, not what you call Establishment. I’m country.

Johnny Cash

42. They’re powerful, those songs. At times they’ve been my only way back, the only door out of the dark, bad places the black dog calls home.

Johnny Cash

43. If you don’t get outside every day, even for a minute, you have not appreciated what God has done. It makes you grateful for our surroundings, and it starts your day differently.

Johnny Cash

44. I wore black because I liked it. I still do, and wearing it still means something to me. It’s still my symbol of rebellion — against a stagnant status quo, against our hypocritical houses of God, against people whose minds are closed to others’ ideas.

Johnny Cash

45. I love to go to the studio and stay there 10 or 12 hours a day. I love it. What is it? I don’t know. It’s life.

Johnny Cash

46. You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.

Johnny Cash

47. If you aren’t gonna say exactly how and what you feel, you might as well not say anything at all.

Johnny Cash

48. Sometimes I am two people. Johnny is the nice one. Cash causes all the trouble. They fight.

Johnny Cash

49. If this were a movie I’d be the bad guy.

Johnny Cash

50. No matter how much you’ve sinned, no matter how much you’ve stumbled, no matter how much you fall, no matter how far you’ve got from God, don’t give up. You can still be redeemed. As someone says, keep the faith.

Johnny Cash

51. I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down, Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town, I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime, But is there because he’s a victim of the times. I wear the black for those who never read.

Johnny Cash

52. It’s like a novelist writing far out things. If it makes a point and makes sense, then people like to read that. But if it’s off in left field and goes over the edge, you lose it. The same with musical talent, I think.

Johnny Cash

53. Backstage at the Grand Ole Opry, I got on my knees and told her that I was going to marry her some day. We were both married to someone else at the time. ‘Ring Of Fire’—June and Merle Kilgore wrote that song for me-that’s the way our love affair was. We fell madly in love and we worked together all the time, toured together all the time, and when the tour was over we both had to go home to other people. It hurt.

Johnny Cash

54. Life is the question and life is the answer, and God is the reason and love is the way.

Johnny Cash

55. Let me tell you, Mr. teacher when you say you’ll make me right, in five hundred years of fighting not one Indian turned white.

Johnny Cash

56. When I record somebody else’s song, I have to make it my own or it doesn’t feel right. I’ll say to myself, I wrote this and he doesn’t know it!

Johnny Cash

57. There is a spiritual side to me that goes real deep, but I confess right up front that I’m the biggest sinner of them all.

Johnny Cash

58. The things that have always been important: to be a good man, to try to live my life the way God would have me, to turn it over to Him that His will might be worked in my life, to do my work without looking back, to give it all I’ve got, and to take pride in my work as an honest performer.

Johnny Cash

59. I wear this crown of thorns Upon my liar’s chair Full of broken thoughts I cannot repair Beneath the stains of time The feelings disappear You are someone else I am still right here What have I become My sweetest friend?

Johnny Cash

60. We’ll all be equal under the grass, and God’s got a heaven for country trash.

Johnny Cash

61. I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.

Johnny Cash

62. You have to be what you are. Whatever you are, you gotta be it.

Johnny Cash

63. The beer and the wurst were wonderful, but I was dying to be back in the South, where the livin’ was easy, where the fish were jumpin’, where the cotton grew high.

Johnny Cash

64. I read novels but I also read the Bible. And study it, you know? And the more I learn, the more excited I get.

Johnny Cash

65. Hardin wouldn’t run.

Johnny Cash

66. God’s the final judge for Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash too. That’s solely in the hands of God.

Johnny Cash

67. Of emotions, of love, of breakup, of love and hate and death and dying, mama, apple pie, and the whole thing. It covers a lot of territory, country music does.

Johnny Cash

68. Life is rough so you gotta be tough.

Johnny Cash

69. I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they’re no good. I don’t throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight.

Johnny Cash

70. The fire and excitement may be gone now that we don’t go out there and sing anymore, but the ring of fire still burns around you and I, keeping our love hotter than a pepper sprout.

Johnny Cash

71. This morning, with her, having coffee.

Johnny Cash

72. I have tried drugs and a little of everything else, and there is nothing in the world more soul-satisfying than having the kingdom of God building inside you and growing.

Johnny Cash

73. When I think about country music, I think about America.

Johnny Cash

74. How well I have learned that there is no fence to sit on between heaven and hell. There is a deep, wide gulf, a chasm, and in that chasm is no place for any man.

Johnny Cash

75. A person knows when it just seems to feel right to them. Listen to your heart.

Johnny Cash

76. I love songs about horses, railroads, land, Judgment Day, family, hard times, whiskey, courtship, marriage, adultery, separation, murder, war, prison, rambling, damnation, home, salvation, death, pride, humor, piety, rebellion, patriotism, larceny, determination, tragedy, rowdiness, heartbreak and love. And Mother. And God.

Johnny Cash

77. Hurt myself today, to see if I still feel I focus on the pain.

Johnny Cash

78. Well, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day, and tell the world that everything’s okay. But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back. ‘Til things are brighter, I’m the man in black. 

Johnny Cash

79. No one else could have home the star Elvis was . Aint nobody like elvis Newer was.

Johnny Cash

80. So I simply don’t buy the concept of “Generation X” as the “lost generation.” I see too many good kids out there, kids who are ready and willing to do the right thing, just as Jack was. Their distractions are greater, though.

Johnny Cash

81. I love weather. I’m a connoisseur of weather. Wherever my travels take me, the first thing I do is turn on the weather channel and see what’s going on, what’s coming. I like to know about regional weather patterns, how storms are created in different altitudes, what kinds of clouds are forming or dissipating or blowing through, where the winds are coming from, where they’ve been. That’s not a passion everybody shares, I know, but I don’t believe there are any people on earth who, properly sheltered, don’t feel the peace inside a summer rain and the cleansing it brings, the renewal of the earth in its aftermath.

Johnny Cash

82. I keep a close watch on this heart of mine.

Johnny Cash

83. Flesh and blood needs flesh and blood, and you’re the one I need.

Johnny Cash

84. There’s a man going ’round taking names / And he decides who to free and who to blame.

Johnny Cash

85. The Master of Life been good to me. He has given me strength to face past illnesses, and victory in the face of defeat. He has given me life and joy where other saw oblivion. He Has given new purpose to live for, new services to render and old wounds to heal.

Johnny Cash

86. Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.

Johnny Cash

87. There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Johnny Cash

88. My arms are too short to box with God.

Johnny Cash

89. Love is a burning thing and it makes a firey ring. 

Johnny Cash

90. Money can’t buy back your youth when you’re old, a friend when you’re lonely, or peace to your soul.

Johnny Cash

91. Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.

Johnny Cash

92. It makes me so mad that some people underestimate the wisdom and energy of young people. All because they don’t look the way older folks think they should look. I’m working on a song about it. Maybe some of those closed minded people will realize long hair and tattoos don’t mean they should be ignored. Close minded people are part of what’s wrong with this world.

Johnny Cash

93.  Burn my Flag and I will shoot you but I’ll shoot you with a lot of love, like a good American.

Johnny Cash

94. The beast in me is caged by frail and fragile bars. 

Johnny Cash

95. Well, I’d love to wear a rainbow everyday, and tell the world that everything’s okay. But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back. ‘Til things are brighter, I’m the man in black.

Johnny Cash

96. For you I know I’d even try to turn the tide.

Johnny Cash

97. That he would pause in his killing to go about the business of preparing for the living knowing that he will immediately return to the business of killing?

Johnny Cash

98. I love the freedoms we got in this country, I appreciate your freedom to burn your flag if you want to, but I really appreciate my right to bear arms so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine.

Johnny Cash

99. Truth, said the Master, cannot be hid. But he didn’t say slap it in the face of my kids.

Johnny Cash

100. A rose looks grey at midnight, but the flame is just asleep. And steel is strong because it knows the hammer and white heat.

Johnny Cash

101. Those that have lived longer than us always have something to teach us, that we can take with us for the rest of our lives. 

Johnny Cash

102. When my wife died, I booked myself into the studio just to work, to occupy myself.

Johnny Cash

103. Six foot six he stood on the ground He weighed two hundred and thirty-five pounds But I saw that giant of a man brought down to his knees by love.

Johnny Cash

104. You can ask the people around me. I don’t give up. I don’t give up… and it’s not out of frustration and desperation that I say I don’t give up. I don’t give up because I don’t give up. I don’t believe in it.

Johnny Cash

105. Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand. Workin’ in the dark against your fellow man. But as sure as God made black and white, what’s down in the dark will be brought to the light. 

Johnny Cash

106. Happiness is being at peace, being with loved ones, being comfortable…but most of all, it’s having those loved ones.

Johnny Cash

107. You’re so heavenly minded, you’re no earthly good.

Johnny Cash

108. It’s good to know who hates you and it is good to be hated by the right people.

Johnny Cash