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Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.

Duke Ellington

There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Goodness Kind Music
If you have a great band with a mediocre drummer, you have a mediocre band. If you have a mediocre band with a great drummer, you have a great band!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Greatness Mediocre Musician Yourself
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.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Communication Dance Important Myself People
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

Beginning Boundary Classical Decision Difficult Lying
Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Lazy Limitation Procrastination
Be a number one yourself. And not a number two somebody else.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Be Yourself Effort Hard Work Inspirational Self Love
I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Blue Energy Myself Writing
Every man prays in his own language.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Himself Language Man Prayer
Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Creation Instinct Past Thinking
Critics have their purposes, 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 they did.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Carry Criticism Focus Purpose Thinking
Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Cloud Pass Sky
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

Believe Black Kind White Yourself
Tomorrow is in the wings waiting for you to sound her entrance fanfare.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Entrance Sound Wings
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

Live Music Myself Occupation Profession
New York is a place where the rich walk, the poor drive Cadillacs, and beggars die of malnutrition with thousands of dollars hidden in their mattresses.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Death Hide Place Walk
There is no art when one does something without intention.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Intention

Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.

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Self-discipline, as a virtue or an acquired asset, can be invaluable to anyone.

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