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On becoming more acquainted with the word of the Bible, I began to understand so much more of what I had been taught, and of what I had learned about life and about the people in mine.

Duke Ellington

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Duke Ellington
Age: 75 †
Born: 1899
Born: April 29
Died: 1974
Died: May 24
Autobiographer
Bandleader
Composer
Conductor
Film Score Composer
Jazz Arranger
Jazz Musician
Lyricist
Music Arranger
Musician
Pianist
Washington
District of Columbia
Edward Kennedy Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy Ellington
Edward K. Ellington
People
Mine
Becoming
Learned
Taught
Word
Acquainted
Understand
Began
Much
Bible
Life
Mines

More quotes by Duke Ellington

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Every man prays in his own language.
Duke Ellington
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There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind ... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful if it doesn't it has failed.
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I'm sure critics have their purpose, and they're supposed to do what they do, but sometimes they get a little carried away with what they think someone should have done, rather than concerning themselves with what he did.
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Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.
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Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn't do nothing.
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Problems are chances for us to do our best.
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Simplicity is a most complex form
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Love is supreme and unconditional like is nice but limited.
Duke Ellington
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A musical profit outweighs a financial loss.
Duke Ellington
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Dancing is very important to people who play music with a beat. I think that people who don't dance, or who never did dance, don't really understand the beat... I know musicians who don't and never did dance, and they have difficulty communicating.
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The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
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My mother told me I was blessed, and I have always taken her word for it. Being born of - or reincarnated from - royalty is nothing Like being blessed. Royalty is inherited from another human being blessedness comes from God.
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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
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I don’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
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The word [jazz] never lost its association with those New Orleans bordellos. In the 1920s I used to try to convince Fletcher Henderson that we ought to call what we were doing 'Negro music'. But it's too late for that now.
Duke Ellington
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People do not retire. They are retired by others.
Duke Ellington
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Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
Duke Ellington
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The common root, of course, comes out of Africa. That's the pulse.The African pulse. It's all the way back from . . . the old slave chants and up through the blues, the jazz, and up through rock. And it's all got the African pulse.
Duke Ellington
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I don't need time. What I need is a deadline!
Duke Ellington
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Create, and be true to yourself, and depend only on your own good taste.
Duke Ellington