If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that's what it's all about.
Carlos SantanaRead
I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the influence of music and social activism on personal growth.
Carlos Santana reflects on his upbringing during a culturally rich time in the 1960s, where music icons inspired him alongside prominent figures of social justice. This intersection shows how art and activism can shape a young person's understanding of the world, blending creativity with a commitment to social change.
In practice
In a speech about cultural influences, one might quote Santana to emphasize the power of music in shaping social change.
If our history can challenge the next wave of musicians to keep moving and changing, to keep spiritually hungry and horny, that's what it's all about.
My dad's a beautiful man, but like a lot of Mexican men, or men in general, a lot of men have a problem with the balance of masculinity and femininity - intuition and compassion and tenderness - and get overboard with the macho thing. It took him a while to become more, I would say, conscious, evolved.
First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.
You can take things that Jimi Hendrix took, from Curtis Mayfield or from Buddy Guy for example, because we are all children of everything, even Picasso. But if you want to stand out, you have to learn to crystallize your existence and create your own fingerprints.
Ever since I was a child I've always been very attracted to melodies. Whether I hear Jeff Beck, a choir, an ocean or the wind, there's always a melody in there.
I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.
Understand and be confident that each of us can make a difference by caring and acting in small as well as big ways.
Nothing is as contagious as enthusiasm. It is the real allegory of the myth of Orpheus; it moves stones, and charms brutes. It is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.
I am very, very hopeful about the American South - I believe that we will lead America to what Dr. King called 'the beloved community.'
To me, I think it's awesome to meet your heroes and find out who they are and where they came from and what made them choose to communicate in the form that connected with you.
The most important thing for aspiring writers is for them to give themselves permission to be brave on the page, to write in the presence of fear, to go to those places that you think you can’t write - really that’s exactly what you need to write.
The best we can hope for in this life is a knothole peek at the shining realities ahead. Yet a glimpse is enough. It's enough to convince our hearts that whatever sufferings and sorrow currently assail us aren't worthy of comparison to that which waits over the horizon.
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