Motivational Quotes

Music

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

- Sir Thomas Beecham

Best Quotes about Music

Good music is very close to primitive language.

Diderot, Denis

Sounds like the blues are composed of feeling, finesse, and fear.

Gibbons, Billy

Music can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.

Duffecy, James

Music of all the arts has the most influence on the passions and the legislator should give it the greatest encouragement.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

I don't mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand.

Sir Edward Appleton

I like Beethoven, especially the poems.

Starr, Ringo

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

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

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

10.

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

Schnabel, Artur

11.

Music is the key to the female heart.

Seume, Johann G.

12.

The history of a people is found in its songs.

Jellinek, George

13.

Rock 'n Roll is an asylum for emotional idiots.

Neville, Richard

14.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

George Bernard Shaw

15.

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

George Bernard Shaw

16.

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

17.

[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

18.

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

19.

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

Armstrong, Louis

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Billings, Josh

23.

Mozart is sweet sunshine.

Dvorak, Antonin

24.

Music expresses that which can not be said and on which it is impossible to be silent

Hugo, Victor

25.

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

26.

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.

27.

Music causes us to think eloquently.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

28.

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

29.

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

30.

If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music.

Carlyle, Thomas

31.

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

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Beethoven, Ludwig Van

35.

Music, moody food of us that trade in love.

William Shakespeare

36.

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

Johnson, James Weldon

37.

Music is the vernacular of the human soul.

Latham, Geoffrey

38.

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

John Erskine

39.

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

40.

But then there's a moment like tonight, a profound and transcendent experience, the feeling as if a door has opened, and it's all because of that instrument, that incredible, magical instrument.

Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider

41.

Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains.

Whiteman, Paul

42.

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

Aldous Huxley

43.

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

44.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

45.

Music is only love looking for words.

Durrell, Lawrence

46.

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

Mencken, H. L.

47.

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