Papa didn't cuss, he didn't raise a whole lot of fuss. But when we did wrong, Papa beat the hell out of us.

The one thing that can solve most of our problems is dancing.

Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things he's got it all.

I Don’t Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I'll Get It Myself)

I named my new son James Joseph Brown II. I think he's going to be a lot better than I was.

I only got a seventh-grade education, but I have a doctorate in funk, and I like to put that to good use

Sometimes you struggle so hard to feed your family one way, you forget to feed them the other way, with spiritual nourishment. Everybody needs that.

My music wasn't written by Mozart, Beethoven, Bach or Schubert. It's written by God and me. They go "a one and a two and up." We start on the downbeat. Bam! And that's where we got them.

I've got soul and I'm super bad.

You got to use what you got to get just what you want.

I taught them everything they know, but not everything I know.

For some reason, I kept seeing it—it trembled and silkily glowed on my damp retina—a radiant child of twelve, sitting on a threshold, "pinging" pebbles at an empty can.

Hope is the most exciting thing there is in life.

But do I think that our actions in anyway violate the War Powers Resolution, the answer is no.

The Parthenon without the marbles is like a smile with a tooth missing.

Many Muslim countries are closed to missionaries, a policy Christians see as a denial of religious liberty.

[People] are woefully underestimating this country and what it can achieve.

If you want light to come into your life, you need to stand where it is shining.

[O]ften art has judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past suffered, so that it has never been forgotten. . . .

Humble in a humble state and great in greatness, I will work out the divinity that is busy within my mind.

Cold indeed, and labor lost: Then farewell heat, and welcome frost!