Motivational Quotes

Music

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

Best Quotes about Music

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

The manner in which Americans consume music has a lot to do with leaving it on their coffee tables, or using it as wallpaper for their lifestyles, like the score of a movie --it's consumed that way without any regard for how and why it's made.

Zappa, Frank

Berlioz says nothing in his music, but he says it magnificently.

Huneker, James G.

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

Luther, Martin

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

Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.

John Erskine

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

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

Dan Rather

Country music is three chords and the truth.

Howard, Harlan

10.

Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf.

Wilde, Oscar

11.

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

12.

To know the cause why music was ordain'd! Was it not to refresh the mind of a man after his studies or his usual pain?

William Shakespeare

13.

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes --ah, that is where the art resides.

Schnabel, Artur

14.

You're talking to someone who really understands rock music.

Gore, Tipper

15.

Canned music is like audible wallpaper.

Cooke, Alistair

16.

There is something suspicious about music, gentlemen. I insist that she is, by her nature, equivocal. I shall not be going too far in saying at once that she is politically suspect.

Mann, Thomas

17.

I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention of ours: it is a gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us.

Luther, Martin

18.

One is hardly sensible of fatigue while he marches to music.

Carlyle, Thomas

19.

Just as certain selections of music will nourish your physical body and your emotional layer, so other musical works will bring greater health to your mind.

Lingerman, Hal A.

20.

The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted.

Shakespeare, William

21.

We are aware that the conductor is not really making the music, it is making him -- if he is relaxed, open and attuned, then the invisible will take possession of him; through him, it will reach us.

Brook, Peter (Stephen Paul)

22.

Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.

George Bernard Shaw

23.

The history of a people is found in its songs.

Jellinek, George

24.

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

Woody Allen

25.

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

26.

The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.

Mencken, H. L.

27.

Music is essentially useless, as life is: but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions.

George Santayana

28.

I hate music, especially when it's played.

Jimmy Durante

29.

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.

Coward, Noel

30.

People compose for many reasons: to become immortal; because the pianoforte happens to be open; because they want to become a millionaire; because of the praise of friends; because they have looked into a pair of beautiful eyes; for no reason whatsoever.

Schumann, Robert

31.

[T]here's no bad day that can't be overcome by listening to a barbershop quartet; this is just truth, plain and simple.

Chuck Sigars

32.

Music is only love looking for words.

Durrell, Lawrence

33.

A musicologist is a man who can read music but cannot hear it.

Beecham, Sir Thomas

34.

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

35.

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

Beethoven, Ludwig Van

36.

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

Oscar Wilde

37.

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

38.

A song will outlive all sermons in the memory.

Giles, Henry

39.

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

40.

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

Dietz, Howard

41.

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

42.

Rock 'n Roll is an asylum for emotional idiots.

Neville, Richard

43.

All my concerts had no sounds in them; they were completely silent. People had to make up their own music in their minds!

Yoko Ono

44.

A good composer is slowly discovered a bad composer is slowly found out.

Newman, Ernest

45.

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

Robert Fripp

46.

It is the only sensual pleasure without vice.

Johnson, Samuel

47.

The most perfect expression of human behavior is a string quartet.

Tate, Jeffrey

48.

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

49.

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

Green, Benny

50.

I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday, and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it, and you need them to hear it.

Taylor, James