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It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Duke Ellington

Selfishness can be a virtue. Selfishness is essential to survival, and without survival we cannot protect those whom we love more than ourselves.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Ourselves Selfish Survive Virtue
Art is dangerous. It is one of the attractions: when it ceases to be dangerous, you don’t want it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Dangerous Oneself Yourself
If it sounds good and feels good, then it IS good!
DUKE ELLINGTON

Feeling Music Sound
The wise musicians are those who play what they can master.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Knowledge Master Musician
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

Money Myself Pay Togetherness
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
Jazz is a good barometer of freedom.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Freedom Goodness Measurement
Sing sweet, but put a little dirt in it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Music Sing Song Sweet
People do not retire. They are retired by others.
DUKE ELLINGTON

People Retirement
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

Kind Time Wasted Worry Yourself
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
A problem is a chance for you to do your best.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Best Chance Problem Yourself
Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Either you have it or you haven’t; there’s no proof of it.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Evidence Love Myself Yourself
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
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

Beginning Learning People Teaching Understand Word
There is hardly any money interest in art, and music will be there when money is gone.
DUKE ELLINGTON

Art Interest Money Music

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

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It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

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