Duke Ellington Quotes and Sayings - Page 1

More Duke Ellington quote about:

“I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Art #Opportunity
“Love is supreme and unconditional; like is nice but limited.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Love #Nice #Unconditional
“A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Inspirational #Life #Positive
“How can anyone expect to be understood unless he presents his thoughts with complete honesty? This situation is unfair because it asks too much of the world. In effect, we say, ' I don't dare show you what I am because I don't trust you for a minute but please love me anyway because I so need you to. And, of course, if you don't love me anyway, you're a dirty dog, just as I suspected, so I was right in the first place.' Yet, every time God's children have thrown away fear in pursuit of honesty-trying to communicate themselves, understood or not, miracles have happened.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Dog #Honesty #Children
“Music, of course, is what I hear and something that I more or less live by. It's not an occupation or profession, it's a compulsion.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Occupation #Compulsion
“The artist must say it without saying it.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Artist
“By and large, jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn't want your daughter to associate with.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Daughter #Mother
“The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Inspiring #Music #Wise
“There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Two #Kind
“Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don't want it.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Art #Want #Dangerous
“The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he knows how to listen.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Important #Musician
“Music is my mistress and she plays second fiddle to no one.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Play #Mistress
“There are two kinds of worries - those you can do something about and those you can't. Don't spend any time on the latter.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Inspirational #Two #Worry
“If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Feel Good #Sound
“Fate is being kind to me. Fate doesn't want me to be too famous too young.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Fate #Want
“There is no art without intention.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Art #Intention
“There is nothing to keeping a band together. You simply have to have a gimmick, and the gimmick I use is to pay them money!”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Together #Band
“I never had much interest in the piano until I realized that every time I played, a girl would appear on the piano bench to my left and another to my right.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Girl #Piano
“A goal is a dream with a finish line.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Dream #Goal
“Now I can say loudly and openly what I have been saying to myself on my knees.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Knees
“Gray skies are just clouds passing over.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Clouds #Sky
“Roaming through the jungle of "Ohs" and "Ahs" searching for a more agreeable noise, I live a life of primitivity with the mind of a child and an unquenchable thirst for sharps and flats.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Children #Mind
“It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Lying #Lines
“Put it this way: Jazz is a good barometer of freedom... In its beginnings, the United States of America spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which, eventually, jazz was evolved, and the music is so free that many people say it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Country #Expression
“It's like an act of murder-you play with intent to commit something.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Play #Murder
“Music is the tonal reflection of beauty.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Reflection #Music Is
“A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Loss #Musical #Financial
“People do not retire. They are retired by others.”
-- Duke Ellington

#People #Age #Aging
“Playing 'bop' is like playing Scrabble with all the vowels missing.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Music #Missing #Scrabble
“I donâ€™t believe in categories of any kind, and when you speak of problems between blacks and whites in the U.S.A. you are referring to categories again.”
-- Duke Ellington

#Believe #Kind #Problem

Top 25 Quotes By Duke Ellington Of 81 A Z Quotes

A Taste Of Duke Ellington Connecticut Public Radio

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