Quotes from Carlos Santana

Everybody sooner or later has to drop the luggage and the baggage of illusions.

If you want to be successful, just meditate, man. God will tell you what people need.

The music of Hendrix wakes people up to their possibilities. It's more than just dreaming about being a guitar hero.

If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that's what it's all about.

First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.

I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.

My dad's a beautiful man, but like a lot of Mexican men, or men in general, a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity - intuition and compassion and tenderness - and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more, I would say, conscious, evolved.

Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.

The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace.

The only thing that has ever made me feel old is those few times where I allow myself to be predictable.

My job in this life is to give people spiritual ecstasy through music. In my concerts people cry, laugh, dance. If they climaxed spiritually, I did my job. I did it decently and honestly.

I realized that it's all really one, that John Lennon was correct. We utilize the music to bring down the walls of Berlin, to bring up the force of compassion and forgiveness and kindness between Palestines, Hebrews. Bring down the walls here in San Diego, Tijuana, Cuba.

Just as we have two eyes and two feet, duality is part of life.

I have wisdom. I feel love. I live in the present and I try to present a dimension that brings harmony and healing.

The Devil is like a strainer that separates the mud from the gold.

If you want to be successful, just meditate, man. God will tell you what people need.

Everything is a battlefield. If you fight with anger, you are part of the problem. If you fight with joy, you're part of the solution.

KISS is Las Vegas entertainment. A musician doesn't need the mask.

Live up to your convictions. You walk in grace or you walk in fear. You can't have it both ways.

Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.