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.

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

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.

Music, it requires more than brawn. It requires a lot of heart. You gotta put love in there.

A disciplined mind leads to happiness, and an undisciplined mind leads to suffering.

Knowledge is strength. Ignorance is the kiss of death.

Dreams are sacred future events. It can be either a fate or a warning.

The United States can tell you all about what's wrong with the British, to say nothing of the Russians.

Every single person has a life to live, a work to do, a glorious personality, a wonderful individuality.

I could step out of this sad life like it's an old sorry dress.

If we really want to achieve true prayer, we must turn our backs upon everything temporal, everything external, everything that is not divine.

Divine symbols which have been given to mankind from time to time speak to that forum of truth which is within our hearts, and waken our consciousness to divine ideas entirely beyond words.

When you're eighteen your emotions are violent, but they're not durable.

That god forbid, that made me first your slave, I should in thought control your times of pleasure, Or at your hand th' account of hours to crave, Being your vassal bound to stay your leisure.