Top 50 Gil Scott-Heron Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “The first revolution is when you change your mind.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

2. “Nobody can do everything, but everybody can do something.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

3. “The revolution will not be televised.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

4. “You have to learn and keep learning.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

5. “The revolution that takes place in your head, nobody will ever see that.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

6. “Schedule? I have no schedule. There is no hurry. I work when I want to.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

7. “Our accomplishments show what kind of people we are.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

8. “I am a black man dedicated to expression; expression of the joy and pride of blackness. I consider myself neither poet, composer, or musician. These are merely tools used by sensitive men to carve out a piece of beauty or truth that they hope may lead to peace and salvation.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

9. “Music has the power to make me feel good like nothing else does. It gives me some peace for a while. Takes me back to who I really am.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

10. “The way you get to know yourself is by the expressions on other people’s faces, because that’s the only thing that you can see, unless you carry a mirror about.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

11. “When it comes to people’s safety, money wins out every time.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

12. “Everything that’s bad for you catches on too quickly in America, because that’s the easiest thing to get people to invest in, the pursuits that are easy and destructive, the ones that bring out the least positive aspects of people.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

13. “My songs were always about the tone of voice rather than the words.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

14. “Colour is not the issue in America; class is.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

15. “Man is a complex being: he makes deserts bloom – and lakes die.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

16. “You know what has made me the happiest I’ve ever been? Seeing my son and daughter graduate from college. More than wanting them to be educated, I wanted them to be nice people. To see that they have become both is just a wonderful thing.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

17. “If we meet somebody who has never made a mistake, lets help them start a religion. Until then, were just going to meet other humans and help to make each other better.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

18. “I am honestly not sure how capable I am of love. And I’m not sure why.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

19. “If you aren’t having no fun, die, because you’re running a worthless program, far as I’m concerned.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

20. “Words are important for the mind, but the notes are for the soul.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

21. “You never cared enough to be Black.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

22. “Womenfolk raised me and I was full-grown before I knew I came from a broken home.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

23. “I don’t suspect that in many instances the artists who are dedicated in that fashion to the progress of that community are as well protected by the community as might be necessary.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

24. “I was a better writer when I was teaching. I was constantly going over the basics and constantly reminding myself, as I reminded my students, what made a good story, a good poem.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

25. “I tour more than I need to, more than is good for you. But it’s my favorite part of music. I much prefer it to studio work.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

26. “I would say if you are familiar with our history and the history of our art and literature that you see a clear cut pattern of people wanting to contribute, not only artistically, but in some practical purpose, for the benefits of the community.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

27. “I don’t mind being criticized. I enjoy being criticized personally, not by rumor.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

28. “A lot of folks are so busy trying to get their groceries together that they don’t have time to do research. I have time. Maybe that’s the main difference.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

29. “I try not to take people who haven’t really thought out what they’re doing too seriously. I try not to let them get in the way of what I feel I need to do.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

30. “I cannot afford to watch Fox News.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

31. “I don’t see any independent position that I’m in; it’s rather inter-dependent.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

32. “Every show that sells out is like a hero’s welcome for me.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

33. “I learnt early on that your audience take the songs in the way they want to rather than the way you might want them too.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

34. “It may be crazy, but I’m the closest thing I have to a voice of reason.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

35. “All the dreams you show up in are not your own.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

36. “If someone comes to you and asks for help, and you can help them, you’re supposed to help them. Why wouldn’t you? You have been put in the position somehow to be able to help this person.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

37. “Angel dust won’t go away. Somefolks who were smoking it were going away.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

38. “I was a piano player before I was a poet.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

39. “You can have a poem like “B-Movie” and sum up thirty conversations that people have had on the subject, but I wrote it down, and other people didn’t.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

40. “The truth is that in this country you here you’re more likely to be harassed, hurt, or killed if you’re a minister speaking about progress for Black people than if you are a sure enough revolutionary.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

41. “Life inevitably translates into time. That is why the sum total of it is called ‘a lifetime’. Freedom is the potential to spend one’s time in any fashion one determines.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

42. “I’ve always had questions about what it meant to be a protester, to be in the minority. Are the people who are trying to find peace, who are trying to have the Constitution apply to everybody, are they really the radicals? We’re not protesting from the outside. We’re inside.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

43. “America want nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can, even if it turns out to be only last week. Not to face now or the future, but to face backwards.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

44. “I don’t think people in power have the potential to do anything like that to me. I feel as though as long as our music is available, folks are going to hear it.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

45. “I was one of the first three black students to go to an all-white school in Tennessee.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

46. “I think that the more people who speak out, and say things and take stands on positions that will better our community, the better off each and every other individual artist or otherwise, will be.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

47. “I think a whole lot of stuff gets by people – I could name half a dozen groups that do songs that are openly supportive of experimentation with drugs, nobody ever said anything to them.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

48. “I find it not just strange but almost ridiculous that people could take a song like the one I was doing and interpret it is corroding anything. Folks have the feeling that oftentimes if you don’t talk about something it will go away.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

49. “Every once in a while, you live long enough to get the respect that people didn’t want to give while you were trying to become a senior citizen.”

— Gil Scott-Heron

50. “Oftentimes, the way it seems to be is that our artists in particular point themselves out as spokesmen for a certain constituency in a community, and thereby place themselves in that vulnerable position.”

— Gil Scott-Heron