Duke Ellington

"The future is something we create through our choices."

"I would never diminish someone else's dreams."

"Happiness is a choice you make every day."

"The greatest gift is the ability to love unconditionally."

"Change is inevitable - growth is optional."

"Your legacy is how you're remembered by others."

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best."

"Don't get too set on a particular musical idea. Keep experimenting."

"The most essential thing in life is to be happy."

"There are simply more notes to be played than have ever been dreamed of."

"You cannot define democracy better than by one word: imagination."

"I only have two rules: don't play anything that's boring, and don't play anything that's stupid."

"Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place I want to be."

"The wise say that our failure is to form habits, for habit is the ruin of ambition."

"All music is folk music. I have never heard a horse sing."

"Life is like a train. It's gone on a very long journey already, but we all get on at different points."

"Do nothing and nothing happens. Do something and something happens."

"Dare to be the greatest musician of your time."

"I like the spontaneity of what happens when musicians get together and just play."

"Music must flow as naturally as a river flows."

"Every man prays in his own language, and there is no language that God does not understand."

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."

"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, and a poet must write if he is to be at peace with himself."

"The three most important things in life are friends, music, and a good cigar."

"When you realize the value of all things in this life, you will find that the value of life itself is immeasurable."

"Take the A Train, but know where you're going."

"Every individual has his own music flowing through him."

"The main thing that matters is how people feel about what you do."

"Beyond category is where real beauty lives."

"No two performances are ever the same. That's the miracle of live music."