Motivational Quotes

Music

The history of a people is found in its songs.

- Jellinek, George

Best Quotes about Music

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

Dan Rather

I can sing, and speak to him in many sorts of music.

William Shakespeare

They said, You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are. The man replied, Things as they are changed upon a blue guitar.

Stevens, Wallace

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

Cocteau, Jean

The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it.

Thoreau, Henry David

My music is best understood by children and animals.

Igor Stravinsky

I've outdone anyone you can name -- Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500.

Brown, James

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

Oscar Wilde

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

10.

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

Newman, Ernest

11.

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

12.

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

Huxley, Aldous

13.

Music and dancing (the more the pity) have become so closely associated with ideas of riot and debauchery among the less cultivated classes, that a taste for them, for their own sakes, can hardly be said to exist, and before they can be recommended as innocent or safe amusements, a very great change of ideas must take place.

Herschel, Sir John

14.

Good music is very close to primitive language.

Diderot, Denis

15.

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

Huneker, James G.

16.

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.

17.

Music is a readily available, highly effective tool that you use to improve both your cognitive and physical abilities.

Winter, Arthur

18.

The high note is not the only thing.

Domingo, Placido

19.

I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music.

Joel, Billy

20.

Music is the key to the female heart.

Seume, Johann G.

21.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead.

Stravinsky, Igor

22.

There's a basic rule which runs through all kinds of music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don't know what it is. But I've got it.

Wood, Ron

23.

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

Tate, Jeffrey

24.

The history of a people is found in its songs.

Jellinek, George

25.

It's a marvelous feeling when someone says I want to do this song of yours because they've connected to it. That's what I'm after.

Carpenter, Mary Chapin

26.

We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the warmth given up by a glass of brandy.

West, Rebecca

27.

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

28.

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

Davis, Miles

29.

I'm not going to be joining ZZ Top. You know they can't play my stuff. It's too complicated.

Brown, James

30.

Words are poor interpreters in the realms of emotion. When all words end, music begins; when they suggest, it realizes; and hence is the secret of its strange, inexpressible power.

Haweis, H. R.

31.

Music is only love looking for words.

Durrell, Lawrence

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

Luther, Martin

36.

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

37.

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

38.

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

Beethoven, Ludwig Van

39.

Their savage eyes turn'd to a modest gaze By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods; Since nought so stockish, hard and full of rage, But music for the time doth change his nature. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.

William Shakespeare

40.

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

Beecham, Sir Thomas

41.

If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn't have to go to an osteopath, then there's something wrong.

Rattle, Simon

42.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

Stravinsky, Igor

43.

The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musical Esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.

Steiner, George

44.

A song will outlive all sermons in the memory.

Giles, Henry

45.

[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

46.

Music like religion, unconditionally brings in its train all the moral virtues to the heart it enters, even though that heart is not in the least worthy.

Jean Baptiste Montegut

47.

Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains.

Whiteman, Paul

48.

Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.

Robert Fripp

49.

Country music is three chords and the truth.

Howard, Harlan

50.

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