Wynton Marsalis Quotes

If everyone breaks down their walls and stops putting themselves on holier-than-thou pedestals, we can all learn from each other.

Understanding and accepting diversity enables us to see that each of us is needed.. It also enables us to begin to think about being abandoned to the strengths of others, of admitting that we cannot know or do everything.

I think what's important is to give space to the range of human experience.

I'm a collaborator. I know I don't know everything. I don't want to know everything.

I know that some of the ideas that I have are not always going to be seen as a good idea by everybody but, that's just life. We learn at some point that you don't always get your way.

Empathy requires knowing that you know nothing.

The man who can put himself in the place of other men, who can understand the workings of their minds, need never worry about what the future has in store for him.

However, it must always remain a dialogue, and never an imposition of the church's own convictions and methods. Propose, not impose. To serve, and not to dominate.

As soon as you think you know someone else's truth better than they do, you are in deep water.

I love to work with performers that are very different to me.

It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.

I'm not here to try and replace anyone or compete with anyone.

Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.

It would never occur to me to judge anyone.

As I get older, I get smaller. I see other parts of the world I didn't see before. Other points of view. I see outside myself more.

We've known for a long time, and I think culturally we've accepted, that diversity is an important thing in the work of knowledge.

I'm somebody who doesn't feel the need to be in the driver's seat all the time. I appreciate the perspective of being in the passenger's seat sometimes, and I feel fortunate for that because I've learned a lot from that perspective.

We are seekers of the truth, but we do not embody the truth. And in humility, we should recognize that the same can be said about our most ardent foes.

I came to believe that a leader isn't good because they're right; they're good because they're willing to learn and to trust.

The beauty of having your ego checked as many times as my ego was checked in Newark made me recognize how much I needed other people who were very different than me in order to get big things done.

At some point, you have to be willing to accept other people's opinions. I think that's helpful.

We have never wrapped ourselves up in our own world thinking we are the only people who know what is doing. We listen to other things and see what we would like and what would suit us.

That's always what I've tried to do. I've tried to communicate. But at the end of the day, it's still for you to understand something. Understand that the world is bigger than you.

Humility, we say, is very important because we feel humility means the ability to listen, the ability to respect another's opinion and to find that everybody around you in some subject knows more.

Being stubborn is not an asset. You have to be able to see things through other people's eyes.