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

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

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

Cocteau, Jean

I've always felt rock and roll was very, very wholesome music.

Franklin, Aretha

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

Billings, Josh

Canned music is like audible wallpaper.

Cooke, Alistair

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

Green, Benny

I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age. Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time.

Raitt, Bonnie

There is two kinds of music the good and bad. I play the good kind.

Armstrong, Louis

Music is only love looking for words.

Durrell, Lawrence

10.

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

11.

Music was invented to confirm human loneliness.

Durrell, Lawrence

12.

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

13.

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

Stravinsky, Igor

14.

The history of a people is found in its songs.

Jellinek, George

15.

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

Tate, Jeffrey

16.

It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives it most distinctive characteristics.

Johnson, James Weldon

17.

It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of culture.

Cage, John

18.

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

Plutarch

19.

Music is spiritual. The music business is not.

Morrison, Van

20.

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

William Shakespeare

21.

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

22.

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

23.

Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work. We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to a human mind.

Thomas, Lewis

24.

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

25.

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

Aldous Huxley

26.

Music, moody food of us that trade in love.

William Shakespeare

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.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

29.

Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.

Sousa, John Philip

30.

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

Beecham, Sir Thomas

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.

We fight our way through the massed and leveled collective safe taste of the Top 40, just looking for a little something we can call our own. But when we find it and jam the radio to hear it again it isn't just ours -- it is a link to thousands of others who are sharing it with us. As a matter of a single song this might mean very little; as culture, as a way of life, you can't beat it.

Marcus, Greil

33.

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

Dan Rather

34.

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

George Bernard Shaw

35.

There once was a brainy baboon who always breathed down a bassoon for he said, It appears that in billions of years I shall certainly hit on a tune.

Pound, Ezra

36.

I think everyone should have a Beatles phase in their life. I think it's part of growing up in the Western world.

Jadelr and Cristina Cordova

37.

I was a veteran before I was a teenager.

Jackson, Michael

38.

Music is the vernacular of the human soul.

Latham, Geoffrey

39.

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

40.

Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder.

Ruskin, John

41.

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

Mencken, H. L.

42.

Music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good or bad to the deaf.

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de)

43.

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

44.

In sweet music is such art: killing care and grief of heart fall asleep, or hearing, die.

William Shakespeare

45.

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.

Coward, Noel

46.

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

47.

Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.

G. K. Chesterton

48.

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

49.

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

J. K. Rowling

50.

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