Top 50 James Brown Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Our silence is deafening and deadly.”

— James Brown

2. “I’ve got soul and I’m super bad.”

— James Brown

3. “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.”

— James Brown

4. “You got to live for yourself, yourself and nobody else.”

— James Brown

5. “Don’t let nobody take care of your business better than you.”

— James Brown

6. “You can take care of yourself, and God helps those who help themselves.”

— James Brown

7. “I don’t know karate, but I know ka-razy!”

— James Brown

8. “Everybody over there, get on up. Everybody out there, get into it. Everybody right there, get involved.”

— James Brown

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

— James Brown

10. “The white horse of heroin will ride you to hell.”

— James Brown

11. “You can’t teach others if you are living the same way.”

— James Brown

12. “I’m twice as old, but I feel good.”

— James Brown

13. “It doesn’t matter how you travel it, it’s the same road. It doesn’t get any easier when you get bigger, it gets harder. And it will kill you if you let it.”

— James Brown

14. “If you don’t get it the first time, back up and try it again.”

— James Brown

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15. “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.”

— James Brown

16. “You got to use what you got to get just what you want.”

— James Brown

17. “I taught them everything they know, but not everything I know.”

— James Brown

18. “My son don’t have to say it loud, I’m black and I’m proud. He don’t have to be called those crazy names.”

— James Brown

19. “Thank God that I had the ability to understand that I had a different beat and that I was a drummer.”

— James Brown

20. “I want to say to you: Help yourself, so you can help someone else.”

— James Brown

21. “I used to think like Moses. That knocked me down for a couple years and put me in prison. Then I start thinking like Job. Job waited and became the wealthiest and richest man ever ’cause he believed in God.”

— James Brown

22. “Money won’t change you, but time will take you out.”

— James Brown

23. “Sometimes, you like to let the hair do the talking!”

— James Brown

24. “Some like them fat, some like them tall, some like them short, skinny legs and all. I like them all.”

— James Brown

25. “When you touch me, good God.”

— James Brown

26. “Tell the politicians and the hustlers: live and let live.”

— James Brown

27. “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.”

— James Brown

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

— James Brown

29. “Takes a man or a woman to say I’m sorry, and it takes a fool to walk away.”

— James Brown

30. “I had to tell about my colonic, which expresses the fact why I’m so neat today as opposed to a few years ago. I never knew that the weight made that much difference.”

— James Brown

31. “This is a revolution of the mind, get your mind together and get away from drugs.”

— James Brown

32. “Music has to breathe and sweat. You have to play it live.”

— James Brown

33. “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.”

— James Brown

34. “Got ants in my pants and I need to dance, so big fine mama, come give me a chance.”

— James Brown

35. “Take those kids and raise them up, teach them how to drink out of a righteous cup.”

— James Brown

36. “You’re like a dull knife, it just ain’t cutting.”

— James Brown

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

— James Brown

38. “I’m a ghetto man who made good. I never forgot where I came from and who put me on top – God and Jack The Rapper.”

— James Brown

39. “When I’m on stage, I’m trying to do one thing: bring people joy. Just like church does. People don’t go to church to find trouble, they go there to lose it.”

— James Brown

40. “I’d rather be Jack be smart, than Jack be quick. Watch out for the man with the big fat licking stick.”

— James Brown

41. “As I always said, if people wanted to know who James Brown is, all they have to do is listen to my music.”

— James Brown

42. “My expectations of other people, I double them on myself.”

— James Brown

43. “I’ve outdone anyone you can name – Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500.”

— James Brown

44. “I used to play one job and have 125 pair of shoes on the floor. What was I doing? I couldn’t wear but one pair.”

— James Brown

45. “When I’m on stage, I’m trying to do one thing: bring people joy.”

— James Brown

46. “For goodness sake, look at those cakes.”

— James Brown

47. “Retire for what? What would I do? I made my name as a person that is helping. I’m like Moses in the music business.”

— James Brown

48. “We can never be like it was at Penn State with Joe Paterno. That was an anomaly in an of itself.”

— James Brown

49. “I think the best thing about being James Brown is looking at my little son. Hopefully I can make my son a role model to a lot of people.”

— James Brown

50. “What everybody’s looking for today, they’re looking for escape-ism.”

— James Brown