Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind — listen to the birds. And don't hate nobody.

The line distills a practical philosophy associated with Eubie Blake’s long life in American entertainment: acknowledge the role of chance (“Be grateful for luck”), refuse to be dominated by adversity (“Pay the thunder no mind”), and deliberately attend to everyday beauty and renewal (“listen to the birds”). The closing injunction—“don’t hate nobody”—turns the advice from mere optimism into an ethical stance: resentment corrodes the self and distracts from living. Read together, the sentences move from circumstance (luck), to perception (what you choose to notice), to character (how you treat others), suggesting that resilience is built by gratitude, selective attention, and compassion.