A lot of the musicians asked me if when I hit my high-Cs on the records I had a clarinet take the notes. Some [thought] I had invented some kind of gadget so I could play high register. They weren't satisfied until they handed me a trumpet that they had with them and had me swing it. Then they cheered.

I spent nine days in the Downtown Los Angeles City Jail. The judge gave me a suspended sentence and I went to work that night - wailed just like nothing happened. What strucked me funny though - I laughed real loud when several movie stars came up to the bandstand while we played a dance set and told me, when they heard about me getting caught with marijuana, they thought marijuana was a chick. Woo boy - that really fractured me!

As many bands as you heard [in New Orleans], that's how many bands you heard playing right. I thought I was in Heaven playing second trumpet in the Tuxedo Brass Band -- and they had some funeral marches that would just touch your heart, they were so beautiful.

As many bands as you heard [in New Orleans], that's how many bands you heard playing right. I thought I was in Heaven playing second trumpet in the Tuxedo Brass Band -- and they had some funeral marches that would just touch your heart, they were so beautiful.

It ain't whatcha say, it's the way howcha say it.

I've Got the World on a String,

If you don't understand it, don't mess with it.

When you're with another tea smoker it makes you feel a special kinship,

If you still have to ask, shame on you

It's getting almost so bad a colored man hasn't got any country.

I had a chance to play with the best musicians that were coming through because I was pretty good myself or else they wouldn't have tolerated with me.

Jazz is what I play for a living.

Red beans and ricely yours.

If it hadn't been for Jazz, there wouldn't be no rock and roll.

In matters of observation chance favors only the prepared mind. (not literal translation) - Dan's les champs de observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits prepares.

There is no such thing as applied science, only the application of pure science.

If you suppress laboratories, physical science will be stricken with barrenness and death.

Worship the spirit of criticism.

One must not assume that an understanding of science is present in those who borrow the language

In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are prepared.

I give them experiments and they respond with speeches.

These are the living springs of great thoughts and great actions. Everything grows clear in the reflections from the Infinite.

Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment.

It would seem to me that I was committing a theft if I were to let one day go by without doing some work.

In good philosophy, the word cause ought to be reserved to the single Divine impulse that has formed the universe.

I am on the edge of mysteries and the veil is getting thinner and thinner.

In the fields of observation chance favors only those minds which are prepared.

To bring one's self to believe in a truth that has just dawned upon one is the first step towards progress; to persuade others is the second.

Science advances through tentative answers to a series of more and more subtle questions which reach deeper and deeper into the essence of natural phenomena.

Science proceeds by successive answers to questions more and more subtle, coming nearer and nearer to the very essence of phenomena.

The artificial products do not have any molecular dissymmetry; and I could not indicate the existence of a more profound separation between the products born under the influence of life and all the others.

There is no such thing as a special category of science called applied science; there is science and its applications, which are related to one another as the fruit is related to the tree that has borne it.

The nights seem to me too long... I am often scolded by Madame Pasteur, but I tell her I shall lead her to fame.

As in the experimental sciences, truth cannot be distinguished from error as long as firm principles have not been established through the rigorous observation of facts.

Since the most ancient times, all men, and particularly those who endeavored in the practice of medicine, have brought closer together two natural phenomena of capital importance: illness or fever and fermentation.

Worship the spirit of criticism. If reduced to itself it is not an awakener of ideas or a stimulant to great things, but, without it, everything is fallible; it always has the last word.

Work usually follows will.

Science knows no country because it is the light that iluminates the world

I have the faith of a Breton peasant and by the time I die I hope to have the faith of a Breton peasant's wife.

Analogy cannot serve as proof.

The grandeur of the acts of men are measured by the inspiration from which they spring.

Science belongs to no one country.

The grandeur of the acts of men are measured by the inspiration from which they spring. Happy is he who bears a God within.

Without theory, practice is but routine born of habit. Theory alone can bring forth and develop the spirit of inventions.

You have not succeeded in your experiments, that is all there is to it.

Wine is the healthiest and most health-giving of drinks.

The universe is asymmetric and I am persuaded that life, as it is known to us, is a direct result of the asymmetry of the universe or of its indirect consequences. The universe is asymmetric.

Do not promote what you can't explain, simplify, and prove early.

Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen? Chance favors only the prepared mind.

The Greeks understood the mysterious power of the below things. They are the ones who gave us one of the most beautiful words in our language, the word enthusiasm.