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Creativity Quote by Bob Marley

"Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be alright"

About this Quote

Marley’s reassurance lands with the casual authority of someone who’s seen enough chaos to earn the right to sound simple. “Don’t worry about a thing” isn’t the airy positivity of a greeting card; it’s a command, delivered like a chant you borrow when your own brain won’t stop spiraling. The line’s genius is its scale shift: not “everything” but “every little thing.” Marley shrinks the problem down to bite-size units, the kind you can survive in real time. It’s pastoral, almost domestic language, built for mornings when the news feels too big.

The grammar matters. “Gonna be alright” sits in vernacular, not polished uplift, which makes it feel communal rather than preachy. It’s the sound of someone talking you off a ledge on a stoop, not a guru selling enlightenment. The repetition in the song turns the phrase into a ritual; you don’t just believe it, you practice it. That’s the subtext: calm as a discipline, hope as something you rehearse together.

Context sharpens the edge. Marley wasn’t singing from a bubble. He came up in postcolonial Jamaica, amid economic strain and political violence, and he became a global symbol while carrying the contradictions of fame, poverty, and power. Against that backdrop, the line reads less like denial and more like survival technology: a portable peace you can carry through instability. It’s comfort with teeth - a refusal to let panic be the default setting.

Quote Details

TopicOptimism
Source'Three Little Birds' , lyric by Bob Marley and the Wailers: "Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be alright."
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Marley, Bob. (n.d.). Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be alright. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/dont-worry-about-a-thing-cause-every-little-thing-171998/

Chicago Style
Marley, Bob. "Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be alright." FixQuotes. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/dont-worry-about-a-thing-cause-every-little-thing-171998/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing gonna be alright." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/dont-worry-about-a-thing-cause-every-little-thing-171998/. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.

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Dont Worry About a Thing, Every Little Thing Will Be Alright
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About the Author

Bob Marley

Bob Marley (February 6, 1945 - May 11, 1981) was a Musician from Jamaica.

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