A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.
Give me a museum and I’ll fill it.
We live for books.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
Art is my life and my life is art.
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.
It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don’t really care for music, do you? It goes like this the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah.
Culture does not make people. People make culture.
Stories matter. Many stories matter.
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out.
Art is not a mirror held up to reality but a hammer with which to shape it.
Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.
Translation is not a matter of words only: it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture.
Feed the body food and drink, it will survive today. Feed the soul art and music, it will live forever.
Music to me is the air I breathe, it’s the blood that pumps through my veins that keeps me alive.
If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.
The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.