Motivational Quotes

Music

The author's conviction on this day of New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement.

- Pound, Ezra

Best Quotes about Music

Music, moody food of us that trade in love.

William Shakespeare

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.

Britten, Benjamin

Composers shouldn't think too much -- it interferes with their plagiarism.

Dietz, Howard

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

George Eliot

There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.

Beecham, Sir Thomas

I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland.

Woody Allen

Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra, not choreography to the audience.

Szell, George

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

Robert Fripp

When Mozart was composing at the end of the eighteenth century, the city of Vienna was so quiet that fire alarms could be given verbally, by a shouting watchman mounted on top of St. Stefan's Cathedral. In twentieth-century society, the noise level is such that it keeps knocking our bodies out of tune and out of their natural rhythms. This ever-increasing assault of sound upon our ears, minds, and bodies adds to the stress load of civilized beings trying to live in a highly complex environment.

Halpern, Steven

10.

Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away.

Sir Thomas Beecham

11.

Music was invented to confirm human loneliness.

Durrell, Lawrence

12.

Next to theology I give music the highest place of honor.

Luther, Martin

13.

Music hath the charm to soothe a savage beast, but I'd try a revolver first.

Billings, Josh

14.

The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking,'Is there a meaning to music?'My answer would be,'Yes.'And'Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?'My answer to that would be,'No.'

Aaron Copland

15.

Music causes us to think eloquently.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

16.

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Huxley, Aldous

17.

If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.

John Cage

18.

Song is the heroics of speech.

Carlyle, Thomas

19.

A lot of people are singing about how screwed up the world is, and I don't think that everybody wants to hear about that all the time.

Carey, Mariah

20.

An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger.

Dan Rather

21.

Music is only love looking for words.

Durrell, Lawrence

22.

The high note is not the only thing.

Domingo, Placido

23.

Music makes one feel so romantic - at least it always gets on one's nerves - which is the same thing nowadays.

Oscar Wilde

24.

Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!

J. K. Rowling

25.

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.

Martin Luther

26.

The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes.

Beecham, Sir Thomas

27.

A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.

Green, Benny

28.

If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. Therefore, respect every musician in his proper place.

Schumann, Robert

29.

The way to write American music is simple. All you have to do is be an American and then write any kind of music you wish.

Virgil Thomson

30.

I was a veteran before I was a teenager.

Jackson, Michael

31.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.

Carlyle, Thomas

32.

Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.

Martin Luther

33.

Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.

Wilde, Oscar

34.

Modern music is as dangerous as narcotics.

Mascagni, Pietro

35.

Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune.

Cervantes, Miguel De

36.

True music must repeat the thought and inspirations of the people and the time. My people are Americans and my time is today.

Gershwin, George

37.

If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing.

Proverb, Zimbabwe

38.

Among all men on the earth bards have a share of honor and reverence, because the muse has taught them songs and loves the race of bards.

Homer

39.

I am fond of music I think because it is so amoral. Everything else is moral and I am after something that isn't. I have always found moralizing intolerable.

Hesse, Hermann

40.

I often thought that if there had been a good rap group around in those days, I might have chosen a career in music instead of politics.

Nixon, Richard M.

41.

It was called the Backstreet Market, and it was just like a local hangout. That was where the kids would drive their cars, hang out with their convertibles and listen to music. That's how we got Backstreet. We put Boys on it, because no matter how old we get, we'll always be boys.

Richardson, Kevin

42.

Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress.

Levi-Strauss, Claude

43.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears form the eyes of woman.

Beethoven, Ludwig Van

44.

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.

Cocteau, Jean

45.

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Aldous Huxley

46.

Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord.

Plutarch

47.

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Einstein, Albert

48.

When griping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind opresses, then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress.

William Shakespeare

49.

Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.

Beecham, Sir Thomas

50.

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.

Coward, Noel