Top 50 Sun Ra Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “Art does not begin with imitation, but with discipline.”

— Sun Ra

Featured in: Discipline Quotes, Design Quotes

2. “Music is a plane of wisdom, because music is a universal language, it is a language of honor, it is a noble precept, a gift of the Airy Kingdom, music is air, a universal existence common to all the living.”

— Sun Ra

3. “The possible has been tried and failed. Now it’s time to try the impossible.”

— Sun Ra

4. “Music is not material. Music is Spiritual.”

— Sun Ra

5. “I have many names; some call me Mr. Ra, others call me Mr. Re, you can call me Mr. Mystery.”

— Sun Ra

6. “The light of the future casts the shadows of tomorrow.”

— Sun Ra

7. “If you’re not mad at the world, you don’t have what it takes.”

— Sun Ra

8. “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country among his own people.”

— Sun Ra

9. “Where human eyes have never seen, where human beings have never been, I build a world of abstract dreams, and I wait for you.”

— Sun Ra

10. “Space is not only high, it’s low. It’s a bottomless pit.”

— Sun Ra

11. “History is His story. You haven’t heard my story.”

— Sun Ra

12. “Those who will not dance will have to be shot.”

— Sun Ra

13. “The planet is asleep and it’s the fault of musicians who are untrue to themselves.”

— Sun Ra

14. “Heaven is where you’ll be when you are okay right where you are.”

— Sun Ra

15. “The earth moves in a certain rhythm, a certain sound, a certain note. When the music stops the earth will stop and everything upon it will die.”

— Sun Ra

16. “I never wanted to be a part of planet Earth, but I am compelled to be here, so anything I do for this planet is because the Master-Creator of the Universe is making me do it. I am of another dimension. I am on this planet because people need me.”

— Sun Ra

17. “The real aim of music is to co-ordinate the minds of the people into an intelligent reach for a better world and an intelligent approach to the living future.”

— Sun Ra

18. “I’m playing dark history. It’s beyond black. I’m dealing with the dark things of the cosmos.”

— Sun Ra

19. “Music can be the bridge to understanding, but people have to get some knowledge.”

— Sun Ra

20. “Music is a language, a universal language.”

— Sun Ra

21. “And then when I went to Chicago, that’s when I had these outer space experiences and went to the other planets.”

— Sun Ra

22. “I use music as a medium to talk to people.”

— Sun Ra

23. “If death is the absence of life, then death’s death is life.”

— Sun Ra

24. “At first there was nothingthen nothing turned itself inside-out and became something.”

— Sun Ra

25. “I think of myself as a complete mystery. To myself.”

— Sun Ra

26. “Freedom of Speech is Freedom of Music.”

— Sun Ra

27. “With music you can express any emotion, you can paint pictures...”

— Sun Ra

28. “A world is in danger, this planet is in great danger!”

— Sun Ra

29. “I’m not a prophet. I’m a destiny-changer. It’s all right to prophesy, but the best thing to do is change things, if you’ve got the power.”

— Sun Ra

30. “Well, actually, I’m a psychic being, and you know, we don’t concern ourselves with being born; we concern ourselves with being eternal; we deal with the spirit.”

— Sun Ra

31. “Behold the pre-prophetic symbols of the planes of Never. Behold, behold this thisness! This isness.”

— Sun Ra

32. “I’m not into division. I’m into coordination, discipline and tradition.”

— Sun Ra

33. “The world is in such a bad condition that if they don’t find what you call a redeemer, every man, woman and child on this planet will be eliminated.”

— Sun Ra

34. “In the world of tomorrow, the new man will ‘think’ the place he wants to go, then his mind will take him there.”

— Sun Ra

35. “I am a musician, but I’m another type of musician.”

— Sun Ra

36. “In some far off place, many light years in space, I’ll wait for you. Where human feet have never trod, where human eyes have never seen. I’ll build a world of abstract dreams and wait for you.”

— Sun Ra

37. “What I’m dealing with is so vast and great that it can’t be called the truth. It’s above the truth.”

— Sun Ra

38. “I see people as they really are from a pure point of view.”

— Sun Ra

39. “It ain’t necessarily so that it ain’t necessarily so.”

— Sun Ra

40. “I’m not a minister, I’m not a philosopher, I’m not a politician, I’m in another category.”

— Sun Ra

41. “But recently I began to feel that maybe I wouldn’t be able to do what I want to do and need to do with American musicians, who are imprisoned behind these bars; music’s got these bars and measures you know.”

— Sun Ra

42. “Sometimes in the ignorance I feel the meaning Invincible invisible wisdom, And I commune with intuitive instinct With the force that made life be And since it made life be It is greater than life And since it let extinction be It is greater than extinction. I commune with feelings more than prayer.”

— Sun Ra

43. “The music is not part of this planet in a sense that the spirit of it is about happiness. Most musicians play earth things about what they know, but I found out that they are mostly unhappy and frustrated, and that creeps over into their music.”

— Sun Ra

44. “Proper evaluations of words and letters in their phonetic and associated sense can bring the people of earth to the clear light of pure cosmic wisdom.”

— Sun Ra

45. “The world thinks that music is a commercial commodity. I’m glad that is not my code.”

— Sun Ra

46. “I always say it’s not my Arkestra, it belongs to some other force which wants certain things, to reach people.”

— Sun Ra

47. “Bach and Beethoven, all of them, they had to write something to please the upper structure, those with money and power.”

— Sun Ra

48. “It’s such a tragedy that man endures in killing his brother and his own kind, putting him in jail and insane asylums, letting him lay out in the street.”

— Sun Ra

49. “Today’s symphonic music is sponsored by the upper structures of society.”

— Sun Ra

50. “All these other nations seem to appreciate what I’m doing and they want me to play the furthest out things.”

— Sun Ra