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Carlos Santana with his quote: “Some songs are just like tattoos for your brain... you hear them and they're affixed to you.” | Source: Getty Images
Carlos Santana with his quote: “Some songs are just like tattoos for your brain... you hear them and they're affixed to you.” | Source: Getty Images

55 Santana Quotes from One of the Top Guitarists in History

Dayna Remus
Aug 29, 2023
09:00 A.M.
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The prolific guitarist Carlos Santana is not only enchanting in his music but has a way with words, presenting any idea with a poetic and alluring touch. Read these 55 Santana quotes and delve into his rich words of wonder.

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It is no secret that Carlos Santana is known to be one of the greatest guitar players in history. He is evidently passionate about many aspects of music, with many opinions on other musicians, making music, and how it can affect the individual.

This talented performer is also clearly spiritual and has an affinity for loving and peaceful views on a personal and broader socio-political level. Santana truly believes in the individual's potential and ability to manifest their reality through their minds and spirituality. Many of his perceptions are laid out artistically and poetically, and even if you disagree with them, they become strangely enticing.

Learn more about his many views by reading these 55 Santana quotes.

Carlos Santana’s quote: "If you stay in your heart you will always be inspired and if you are inspired you will always be enthusiastic.┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: "If you stay in your heart you will always be inspired and if you are inspired you will always be enthusiastic.┃Source: AmoDays

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Carlos Santana Inspirational Quotes

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

“Some songs are just like tattoos for your brain... you hear them and they're affixed to you.” — Carlos Santana

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

“You've got to change your evil ways, baby, before I start loving you.” — Carlos Santana

"If you stay in your heart you will always be inspired and if you are inspired you will always be enthusiastic. There is nothing more contagious on this planet than enthusiasm." — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: "If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment."┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: "If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment."┃Source: AmoDays

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“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.” — Carlos Santana

“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.” — Carlos Santana

"If you carry joy in your heart, you can heal any moment." — Carlos Santana

“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.” — Carlos Santana

"We are capable of creating miracles ourselves and the greatest miracle is to create a masterpiece of joy out of your life with no excuses. The thing I focus on is going straight to heart. I go to mine first because if I don't feel it, you're not going to feel it. I take a deep breath and remind myself that before I give it to you I have to give it to myself." — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: "If you want to be successful, just meditate, man. God will tell you what people need."┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: "If you want to be successful, just meditate, man. God will tell you what people need."┃Source: AmoDays

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"You can take things that Jimi Hendrix took, from Curtis Mayfield or from Buddy Guy for example, because we are all children of everything, even Picasso. But if you want to stand out, you have to learn to crystallize your existence and create your own fingerprints.” — Carlos Santana

“I knuckle down with my demons, and with my weaknesses.” — Carlos Santana

“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.” — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana Quotes Full of Life Lessons

“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.” — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: “Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine manner."┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: “Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine manner."┃Source: AmoDays

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

“The more choices we give patients affected by depression, the better we will serve them.” — Carlos Santana

"Peace has never come from dropping bombs. Real peace comes from enlightenment and educating people to behave more in a divine manner." — Carlos Santana

“The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace.” — Carlos Santana

"Just as we have two eyes and two feet, duality is part of life." — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: “Live up to your convictions. You walk in grace or you walk in fear. You can't have it both ways.” ┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: “Live up to your convictions. You walk in grace or you walk in fear. You can't have it both ways.” ┃Source: AmoDays

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"There is no person that love cannot heal; there is no soul that love cannot save." — Carlos Santana

“Your mind is a magnet. You don't attract what you need or what you want; you attract who you are. And I love who I am!” — Carlos Santana

“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.” — Carlos Santana

"The worst thing you can become in life is cynical. Cynical is like concrete. and nothing grows in concrete." — Carlos Santana

“I'm laughing because I know the secret of life. And the secret of life is that I have validated my existence. I know that I am worth more than my house, my bank account, or any physical thing.” — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: There is no person that love cannot heal; there is no soul that love cannot save." ┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: There is no person that love cannot heal; there is no soul that love cannot save." ┃Source: AmoDays

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“Happiness is not a destination or an experience. It's a decision.” — Carlos Santana

“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.” — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana Thought-Provoking Quotes

“I know I'm not the kind of person who's gonna wind up a walking jukebox, like many rock 'n' roll artists. They just play their hits and that's it. That doesn't appeal to me.” — Carlos Santana

“When a baby comes you can smell two things: the smell of flesh, which smells like chicken soup, and the smell of lilies, the flower of another garden, the spiritual garden.” — Carlos Santana

“'KISS' is Las Vegas entertainment. A musician doesn't need the mask.” — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: "There is no greater reward than working from your heart and making a difference in the world."┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: "There is no greater reward than working from your heart and making a difference in the world."┃Source: AmoDays

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“I have been accused of being a very simplistic, very lyrical player, and that's okay. That just comes from the blues, which is my background. But every day you wake up and transcend. You can't ever rest on your laurels.” — Carlos Santana

“When you fly to New York, sometimes they put you on hold and you just go round and around in a holding pattern. Sometimes in a concert, I feel other spirits in a holding pattern that they want to land through my heart and through my fingers.” — Carlos Santana

"There is no greater reward than working from your heart and making a difference in the world." — Carlos Santana

“The Devil is like a strainer that separates the mud from the gold.” — Carlos Santana

“No one's better than me. I'm not better than anyone. Whether it's Eric Clapton or BB King we look straight at each other. And that keeps it real.” — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: “Your mind is a magnet. You don't attract what you need or what you want; you attract who you are. And I love who I am!”┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: “Your mind is a magnet. You don't attract what you need or what you want; you attract who you are. And I love who I am!”┃Source: AmoDays

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“A lot of people said to me, 'Enough with the guest vocalists for a while. We want to hear the Mexican play the guitar!"— Carlos Santana

“Everybody sooner or later has to drop the luggage and the baggage of illusions.” — Carlos Santana

“The best part of touring, still, is touching people's hearts and igniting my band and igniting the people into what you call a spiritual revelation is sound and emotion.” — Carlos Santana

"I think of music as a menu. I can't eat the same thing every day." — Carlos Santana

“Most people don't have that willingness to break bad habits. They have a lot of excuses and they talk like victims.” — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: “Everybody sooner or later has to drop the luggage and the baggage of illusions.”┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: “Everybody sooner or later has to drop the luggage and the baggage of illusions.”┃Source: AmoDays

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“There's a melody in everything. And once you find the melody, then you connect immediately with the heart. Because sometimes English or Spanish, Swahili or any language gets in the way. But nothing penetrates the heart faster than the melody.” — Carlos Santana

"I am here to give voice to the invisible." — Carlos Santana

“There's never one sunrise the same or one sunset the same.” — Carlos Santana

“I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It's not like I'm cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.” — Carlos Santana

"There is divinity in your DNA. Live your light." — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: "Music rearranges your molecular structure." ┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: "Music rearranges your molecular structure." ┃Source: AmoDays

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“Your wrinkles either show that you're nasty, cranky, and senile, or that you're always smiling.” — Carlos Santana

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

"I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and 'Coltrane', everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.” — Carlos Santana

"Music rearranges your molecular structure." — Carlos Santana

"People are flowers. Music is water. Musicians are the hose." — Carlos Santana

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“I'm ready to do something with Lady Gaga or Andrea Bocelli. I'm really grateful that nothing is out of the realm of possibility.” — Carlos Santana

"The guitar is your first wings. It's assigned and designed to unfold your vision and imagination." — Carlos Santana

“Blues was my first love. It was the first thing where I said, 'Oh man, this is the stuff.' It just sounded so raw and honest, gut-bucket honest. From then, I started rebelling.” — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote:“One day there will be no borders, no boundaries, no flags, and no countries, and the only passport will be the heart.”┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote:“One day there will be no borders, no boundaries, no flags, and no countries, and the only passport will be the heart.”┃Source: AmoDays

“Ever since I was a child, I've always been very attracted to melodies. Whether I hear Jeff Beck, a choir, an ocean, or the wind, there's always a melody in there.” — Carlos Santana

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“I have come to the conclusion - and I don't know why it took me so long, but nevertheless, I'm here now - that a lot of people tell me they don't get enough guitar on my albums. So I decided to do an album where the guitar would be the singer, playing the melody.” — Carlos Santana

“One day there will be no borders, no boundaries, no flags, and no countries, and the only passport will be the heart” — Carlos Santana

Carlos Santana’s quote: "There is divinity in your DNA. Live your light."┃Source: AmoDays

Carlos Santana’s quote: "There is divinity in your DNA. Live your light."┃Source: AmoDays

Santana has a very enriching mindset, filled with love, wonder, and appreciation for the world.

Some cynics may even claim that some of his outlooks are too ideal or delusional. But it is good to stop and consider what he says. No matter how different our opinions are, we can find common truths.

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Of course, whether you agree or disagree with Santana's views, there is denying his talent when playing the guitar. Of course, there are some genuine contenders. These include Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, who most individuals would likely put at the top of the winners' board.

Music taste is subjective. However, if you'd like to expand your horizons and do some taste testing, read these 48 Mac Miller quotes on the importance of positivity & empowerment.

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