The Wisdom of Charles Manson

“When I first used to come to jail the windows had maybe two bars
over them and the sunshine used to come through and make a big
yellow two-striped rectangle on the floor or wall. When I came back
the next time there were four bars instead of two and less sunshine.
Now it’s all bars, steel panels over the windows and no sunshine.”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“You eat meat and you kill things that are better than you are, and then you say how
bad, and even killers, your children are. You made your children what they are. These
children that come at you with knives. they are your children. You taught them. I didn’t
teach them. I just tried to help them stand up. Most of the people at the ranch that
you call the Family were just people that you did not want, people that were alongside
the road, that their parents had kicked out, that did not want to go to Juvenile Hall.
So I did the best I could and I took them up on my garbage dump and I told them
this: that in love there is no wrong. I told them that anything they do for their
brothers and sisters is good if they do it with a good thought.”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“The children of the l960’s that you call the “Manson Family” wanted to stop a war
and turn the government and world to peace. They gave their lives when they took
lives and they knew it. They gave all to clean up ATWA air, trees, water, animals, the
whole of the life of Earth, in love and concern for brothers and sisters in soul. They
gave to get their brothers and sisters out of cages and to touch some intelligence upon
the Earth. By living next to the land, we did see the drought and famine coming. For
my part, I was complete and willing to take responsibility for any influence I had over
The mind of all, but your courts ran for the money and away from their own fears,
guilts, and responsibilities. They didn’t want to confront the truth about themselves.”
– Charles Manson, 1986

“You can try to kill me a million times more but you cannot kill soul. Truth was, is, and
will always be. you have beaten me, broken my neck, knocked my teeth out. You’ve
drugged me for years, dragging me up and down prison hallways, laying my head on
every chopping block you’ve got in this state, chained me, burnt me, but you cannot
defeat me. All you can do is destroy yourselves with your own judgments.”
– Charles Manson, 1986

“I was in the desert minding my business, this confusion belongs to you. It’s your
confusion, I don’t have any confusion. I don’t have any guilt I know what I’ve done
and no man can judge me I judge me…I’ve stayed in the desert and run with the
coyotes and ate off the plants, and I found out you can live out there without this
society and that’s where I would like to go live but you won’t let me go, will you?”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“Your parents have told you what you are. They made you before you were six years old,
and when you stood in school and you crossed your heart and pledged allegiance to the
flag, they trapped you in truth because at that age you didn’t know any lie until that lie was
reflected on you. No, I am not responsible for you. Your karma is not mine. My father is
the jail house. My father is your system, and each one of you are just a reflection of each one
of you, and you all live by yourselves, no matter how crowded you may think that you are in a
room full of people, you are still by yourself, and you have to live with that self forever. To some
people this would be hell; to some people it would be heaven. I have mine, and each one of
you will have to work out yours, and you cannot work it out by pointing your fingers at people.”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“I don’t think like you people. You people put importance on your lives. Well, my life has
never been important to anyone… she says when she looked in that man’s eyes that was
dying, she knew that it was my fault. She knew it was my fault because she couldn’t face
death. And if she can’t face death, that is not my fault. I can face death. I have all the time.
In the penitentiary you live with it, with constant fear of death, because it is a violent world
in there, and you have to be on your toes constantly.”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“If you’re going to do something, do it well. And leave something witchy.”
– Charles Manson, 1969

“The system’s got you all programmed like robots. Break free, man.
Live off the land, forget the money and the laws. They’re just chains.”
– Charles Manson, 1967

“You think you’re free? You’re all slaves. You’re slaves to your parents,
your schools, to your jobs, to your lies. I just found people who were
already slaves and showed them the chains they were wearing.”
– Charles Manson, 1981

“I’ve spent my life in jail. I stayed in jail and I stayed stupid, and I have stayed a child
while I have watched your world grow up. I have looked at your world from behind a wire
fence and I have seen the things you do. I have seen the way you treat each other. You
say I am a leader. I am not a leader. I am a follower. I follow your lead. I am only what you
made me. I am a reflection of every one of you. You want to call me a monster? Look in the
mirror. You created me, and now you want to kill me for being what you taught me to be.”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“I was working at cleaning up my house, something that Nixon should have been doing.
He should have been on the side of the road, picking up his children, but he wasn’t. He
was in the White House, sending them off to war. I don’t understand you, but I don’t try.
I don’t try to judge nobody. I know that the only person I can judge is me . . . But I know
this: that in your hearts and your own souls, you are as much responsible for the Vietnam
war as I am for killing these people. I can’t judge any of you. I have no malice against you
and no ribbons for you. But I think that it is high time that you all start looking at yourselves,
and judging the lie that you live in. I can’t dislike you, but I will say this to you: you haven’t
got long before you are all going to kill yourselves, because you are all crazy. And you can
project it back at me… but I am only what lives inside each and everyone of you.”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“Everybody used to come in and tell me about their past and their lives
and what they did. But I could never tell anybody about my past or what
my life was or what I did because I have always been sitting in that room
with a bed, a locker, and a table. So, then it moves on to awareness: how
many cracks can you count in the wall? It moves to where the mice
live and what the mice are thinking, and see how clever mice are.”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“The evidence in this case is a gun. There was a gun that laid around the ranch. It belonged
to everybody. Anybody could have picked that gun up and done anything they wanted to do
with it. I don’t deny having that gun. That gun has been in my possession many times. Like
the rope was there because you need rope on a ranch… They put the hideous bodies on
display and they imply: If he gets out, see what will happen to you. Helter Skelter means
confusion, literally. It doesn’t mean any war with anyone. It doesn’t mean that some people
are going to kill other people…Confusion is coming down around you fast. If you can’t see the
confusion coming down around you fast, you can call it what you wish. Is it a conspiracy that
the music is telling the youth to rise up against the establishment because the establishment is
rapidly destroying things? Is that a conspiracy? The music speaks to you every day, but you are
too deaf, dumb, and blind to even listen to the music. It is not my conspiracy. It is not my music.
I hear what it relates. It says “Rise,” it says “Kill.” Why blame it on me? I didn’t write the music.”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“Fuck the system-they lock you up for stealing a goddamn car,
but the real thieves are the cops and judges stealing your life. I
survived on the streets by hustling, and I’ll do it again if I have to.”
– Charles Manson, 1951

“My father is the jailhouse. My father is your system. I am only what you made me. I am only
a reflection of you. I have ate out of your garbage cans to stay out of jail. I have wore your
second-hand clothes. I have done my best to get along in your world and now you want to
kill me, and I look at you, and then I say to myself, You want to kill me? Ha! I’m already dead,
have been all my life. I’ve spent twenty-three years in tombs that you built. Sometimes I think
about giving it back to you; sometimes I think about just jumping on you and letting you shoot
me. If I could, I would jerk this microphone off and beat your brains out with it, because that is
what you deserve, that is what you deserve. If I could get angry at you, I would try to kill everyone
of you. If that’s guilt, I accept it. These children, everything they done, they done for the love
of their brother. If I showed them that I would do anything for my brother-including giving my
life for my brother on the battlefield-and then they pick up their banner, and they go off and
do what they do, that is not my responsibility. I don’t tell people what to do.”
– Charles Manson, 1970

“The Bible says eye for an eye-I’d carve out theirs
for what they’ve done to me, but I’ll smile and wait.”
– Charles Manson, 1963

“Society knows what it wants to know that its just a jellyfish
and is only controlled by the people who want to move the
sheep around. They’ll tell ’em anything, everyone knows
that everybody’s lying, who can you trust, Nixon?”
– Charles Manson, 1972

“My father is all men that I’ve ever met in prison… the captains the wardens
I never missed anybody I learned as much as I could from everybody I could
get ahold of and I’ve never met anybody that I couldn’t learn something from,
but now that I’ve learnt what I’ve learnt I don’t think you people want to know
what I know you wouldn’t like it…because the people that you let run your
lives aren’t very nice, the people that govern you aren’t good people.”
– Charles Manson, 1972

‘A guy came up to me and said ‘I heard you said you was Jesus?’
‘No, man, I aint said that’ – Manson
‘I’m glad I’m damn glad’ – Guy
Why? – Manson
‘I know you ain’t him cause I am’ – Dude
– Charles Manson, 1981 lmfao