Louis Daniel Armstrong, nicknamed “Satchmo”, “Satch”, and “Pops”, was an American trumpeter, composer, vocalist, and actor who was among the most influential figures in jazz. Profoundly inspirational Louis Armstrong quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.

If you’re searching for the best quotes from musicians that perfectly capture what you’d like to say or just want to feel inspired yourself, browse through an amazing collection of quotes by Nina Simone, best Luke Bryan quotes and greatest Lin-Manuel Miranda quotes.

Famous Louis Armstrong Quotes

Music is life itself. What would this world be without good music? No matter what kind it is. Louis Armstrong

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know. Louis Armstrong

I never want to be anything more than I am; what I don’t have, I don’t need. Louis Armstrong

All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song. Louis Armstrong

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Louis Armstrong

What we play is life. Louis Armstrong

We all do do, re, mi, but you have got to find the other notes yourself. Louis Armstrong

Seems to me it ain’t the world that’s so bad but what we’re doing to it, and all I’m saying is see what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love, baby love. That’s the secret. Louis Armstrong

I do believe that my whole success goes back to that time I was arrested as a wayward boy at the age of thirteen. Because then I had to quit running around and began to learn something. Most of all, I began to learn music. Louis Armstrong

You will never know what the meaning of Jazz is if ask what it means. Louis Armstrong

We never did try to get together and to show the younger Negroes such as myself, to try and even to show that he has ambitions and with just a little encouragement, I could have really done something worthwhile. But instead, we did nothing but let the young upstarts know that they were young and simple, and that was that. Louis Armstrong

If you have to ask what jazz is you will never know. Louis Armstrong

When the other kids started calling me nicknames, I knew everything was all right. I have a pretty big mouth, so they hit on that and began calling me Gatemouth or Satchelmouth, and that Satchelmouth has stuck to me all my life, except that now it’s been made into. Louis Armstrong

There’s some folks, that, if they don’t know, you can’t tell em. Louis Armstrong

I like kissable lips. A woman’s lips must say, come here and kiss me, Pops. Louis Armstrong

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago. Louis Armstrong

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know.  Louis Armstrong

There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them. Louis Armstrong

There is two kinds of music, the good, and the bad. I play the good kind. Louis Armstrong

Man, all music is folk music. You ain’t never heard no horse sing a song, have you? Louis Armstrong

All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song. Louis Armstrong

Seems to me, it aint the world that’s so bad but what we’re doin’ to it. And all I’m saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love baby, love. That’s the secret. Louis Armstrong

When this ugly gangster told Joe Glaser that he must take the name of Armstrong down, off of the marquee, and it was an order from Al Capone, Mr. Glaser looked this cat straight in the face and told him these words I think that Louis Armstrong is the world’s greatest, and this is my place, and I defy anybody to take his name down from there. Louis Armstrong

Some of you young folks been saying to me, Hey Pops, what you mean What a wonderful world? How about all them wars all over the place? You call them wonderful? And how about hunger and pollution? That aint so wonderful either. Well how about listening to old Pops for a minute. Seems to me, it aint the world that’s so bad but what we’re doin to it. And all I’m saying is, see, what a wonderful world it would be if only we’d give it a chance. Love baby, love. That’s the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we’d solve lots more problems. And then this world would be a gasser. Louis Armstrong

I had a long time admiration for the Jewish people. Especially with their long time of courage, taking so much abuse for so long. I was only seven years old, but I could easily see the ungodly treatment that the white folks were handing the poor Jewish family whom I worked for. Louis Armstrong

Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them. Louis Armstrong

I was determined to play my horn against all odds, and I had to sacrifice a whole lot of pleasure to do so. Louis Armstrong

If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it. Louis Armstrong

Well, I tell you the first chorus, I plays the melody. The second chorus, I plays the melody round the melody, and the third chorus, I routines. Louis Armstrong

To jazz, or not to jazz, there is no question! Louis Armstrong

Musicians don’t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them. Louis Armstrong

It really puzzles me to see marijuana connected with narcotics dope and all of that stuff. It is a thousand times better than whiskey. It is an assistant and a friend. Louis Armstrong

What we play is life.  Louis Armstrong

There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’t tell them. Louis Armstrong

Making money ain’t nothing exciting to me. You might be able to buy a little better booze than the wino on the corner. But you get sick just like the next cat and when you die you’re just as graveyard dead as he is. Louis Armstrong

I warm up at home. I hit the stage, I’m ready, whether it’s rehearsal or anything. Louis Armstrong

There is no such thing as on the way out as long as you are still doing something interesting and good; you’re in the business because you’re breathing. Louis Armstrong

Cat? Cat  can be anybody from the guy in the gutter to a lawyer, doctor, the biggest man to the lowest man, but if he’s in there with a good heart and enjoy the same music together, he’s a cat. Louis Armstrong

My life has always been my music, it’s always come first, but the music ain’t worth nothing if you can’t lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, cause what you’re there for is to please the people. Louis Armstrong

You blows who you is. Louis Armstrong

It makes you feel good, man, makes you forget all the bad things that happen to a Negro. It makes you feel wanted, and when you’re with another tea smoker, it makes you feel a special kinship. Louis Armstrong

Very few of the men whose names have become great in the early pioneering of jazz and of swing were trained in music at all. They were born musicians they felt their music and played by ear and memory. That was the way it was with the great Dixieland Five. Louis Armstrong

The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky Are also on the faces of people goin by I see friends shaking hands saying, How do you do They’re really saying I love you. I hear babies cry, I watch then grow They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know; And I think to myself, What a wonderful world; Yes, I think to myself, What a wonderful world. Oh yeah! Louis Armstrong

I gathered that those two Big shot Boys, Joe Fletcher, just was afraid to let me sing, thinking maybe I’d sort of ruin their reputations with their musical public. They not knowing that I had been singing all of my life. In churches, etc. I had one of the finest All Boys Quartets that ever walked the streets of New Orleans. Louis Armstrong

Musicians in my day had nicknames. My name was Satchel Mouth, like a doctor’s satchel. When I went to England this fellow was strictly English, and he was editor of the newspaper there. He shook my hand after I got off the train and said, Hello, Satchmo. So right away my trombone player said, Mmm, the man thinks you have mo’ mouth than Satchel Mouth. So I was stuck with it, and it turned out all right. Louis Armstrong

The first time I heard Jack Teagarden on the trombone, I had goose pimples all over. Louis Armstrong

The Brick House was one of the toughest joints I ever played in Guys would drink and fight one another like circle saws. Bottles would come flying over the bandstand like crazy and there was lots of plain common shooting and cutting. But somehow all that jive didn’t faze me at all. I was so happy to have some place to blow my horn. Louis Armstrong

When I play, maybe Back o Town Blues, I’m thinking about one of the old, low down moments when maybe your woman didn’t treat you right. That’s a hell of a moment when a woman tell you, I got another mule in my stall. Louis Armstrong

At first it was just a misdemeanor, but then you lost the mis de and you just got meaner and meaner. Louis Armstrong

If you have to ask what jazz is, you’ll never know. Louis Armstrong

Even If I have two three days off, you still have to blow that horn. You have to keep up those chops I have to warm up everyday for at least an hour. Louis Armstrong

All music is folk music. I ain’t never heard a horse sing a song. Louis Armstrong

As a youngster in the little orphanage home in New Orleans, I was the bugler of the institution. When I got to be around 13 or 14 years old, they took me off the bugle and put me in the little brass band. Louis Armstrong

The memory of things gone is important to a jazz musician. Things like old folks singing in the moonlight in the back yard on a hot night or something said long ago. Louis Armstrong

I see trees of green, red roses too. I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. I see skies of blue and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself what a wonderful world. Louis Armstrong

Musicians don’ t retire; they stop when there’s no more music in them. Louis Armstrong

I’ll bet right now most of the youngsters and hot club fans who hear the name Storyville hasn’t the least idea that it consisted of some of the biggest prostitutes in the world. Standing in their doorways nightly in their fine and beautiful negligees  faintly calling to the boys as they passed their cribs. Louis Armstrong

Music is life itself. What would this world be without good music? No matter what kind it is. Louis Armstrong

You see, pops, that’s the kind of talk that’s ruining the music. Everyone’s trying to do something new, no one trying to learn the fundamentals first. All them young cats playing their wierd chords. And what happens? No one’s working. Louis Armstrong

There’s only two ways to sum up music; either it’s good or it’s bad. If it’s good you don’t mess about it, you just enjoy it. Louis Armstrong

You can’t take it for granted. Even if we have two, three days off I still have to blow that horn a few hours to keep up the chops. I mean I’ve been playing 50 years, and that’s what I’ve been doing in order to keep in that groove there. Louis Armstrong

You’ve got to be good or as bad as the devil. When you’re dead, you’re done. Louis Armstrong

All them weird chords which don’t mean a thing you got no melody to remember, and no beat to dance to. Louis Armstrong

My life has always been my music, it’s always come first, but the music ain’t worth nothing if you can’t lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, cause what you’re there for is to please the people. Louis Armstrong

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! Louis Armstrong

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