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Music
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“It is soft, smooth and shining—like intelligence. Its edges seem sharp but do not cut—like justice. It hangs down to the ground—like humility. When struck, it gives a clear, ringing sound—like music. The strains in it are not hidden and add to its beauty—like truthfulness.' What imagination!”
Confucius (551–479 BC) said by 479 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Confucius extolled Jade's virtues this way. Cited in Awake! magazine 1987, 9/22.
“Venice by moonlight is an enchanted city; the floods of silver light upon the moresco architecture, the perfect absence of all harsh sounds of carts and carriages, the never-ceasing music on the waters, produced an effect on the mind which cannot be experienced, I am sure, in any other city in the world.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) first seen 1804 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Isaac Disraeli (c. 8 September 1826), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume. I. 1804–1859 (1929), p. 108
“In different hours, a man represents each of several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us rolled up in each man's skin, — seven or eight ancestors at least, — and they constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which his life is.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Music is the poor man's Parnassus.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool. It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our world as to an asylum. And here they will break out into their native music, and utter at intervals the words they have heard in heaven; then the mad fit returns, and they mope and wallow like dogs!”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The commonest and cheapest sounds, as the barking of a dog, produce the same effect on fresh and healthy ears that the rarest music does. It depends on your appetite for sound. Just as a crust is sweeter to a healthy appetite than confectionery to a pampered or diseased one.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) first seen 1857 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: December 27, 1857
“The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions. But there is also, it seems to me, a moment at which democracy must prove its capacity to act. Every man has a right to be heard; but no man has the right to strangle democracy with a single set of vocal cords.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in New York City (28 August 1952)
“There was no answer, except the general answer life gives to all the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: one must live for the needs of the day, in other words, become oblivious. To become oblivious in dreams was impossible now, at least till night-time; it was impossible to return to that music sung by carafe-women; and so one had to become oblivious in the dreams of life.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) said by 1910 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Even the bad things are better than they used to be. Bad music, for instance, has gotten much briefer. Wagner's Ring Cycle takes four days to perform while "Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm" by the Crash Test Dummies lasts little more than three minutes.”
P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.”
Abraham Maslow (1908–1970) first seen 1943 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Theory of Human Motivation", in Psychological Review, vol. 50, no. 4 (1943), p. 382
“I was looking for a name like the Crickets that meant two things, and from crickets I got to beetles. And I changed [to] B E A because … B E E T L E S didn't mean two things, so I changed … the E to an A. And it meant two things then. … When you said it, people thought of crawly things; and when you read it, it was beat music.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pop Chronicles: "Show 27 - The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!: The U.S.A. is invaded by a wave of long-haired English rockers. Part 1" (24 August 1964).
“Even before the music begins there is that bored look on people's faces. A polite form of self-imposed torture, the concert.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As far as Bach is concerned, I never came close to liking him...My favourite composer is Scriabin...[and] his Fifth sonata, in my mind, the greatest piece of music ever written.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wagner wrote an opera titled Tristan and Yseult and in it there is a theme called Love Death theme. It is so sensual, so sexual that he was criticized for having introduced sex into music. And that was quite a few years before the appearance of Elvis Presley!”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mathematics, trigonometry, chemistry, psychoanalysis, music, and what not have been related to cubism to give it an easier interpretation. All this has been pure literature, not to say nonsense, which brought bad results, blinding people with theories. Cubism has kept itself within the limits and limitations of painting, never pretending to go beyond it.”
Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Let the florid music praise, The flute and the trumpet, Beauty’s conquest of your face: In that land of flesh and bone, Where from citadels on high Her imperial standards fly, Let the hot sun Shine on, shine on.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The actors today really need the whip hand. They're so lazy. They haven't got the sense of pride in their profession that the less socially elevated musical comedy and music hall people or acrobats have. The theater has never been any good since the actors became gentlemen.”
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) first seen 1946 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 16 November 1946
“We celebrated a little early at the White House this year, on quatro de Mayo, with a fiesta on the South Lawn. With the mariachi music, folklorika dancing and an ample supply of Mexican food. For a little while, it was just like being in Texas again.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“America's rich musical heritage reflects the diversity of our people. Among many influences, the cultural traditions brought to this land from Africa more than four centuries ago and the remarkable musical achievements of African Americans since then have strongly and unmistakably improved the sound of American music.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The music of Marian Anderson and other African-American artists has greatly enriched our quality of life and created one of our Nation's most treasured art forms. As universal and original expressions of the human experience, their body of work, both past and present, entertains, inspires, and thrills countless people around the world.”
George W. Bush (born 1946) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Is Wagner a human being at all? Is he not rather a disease? He contaminates everything he touches - he has made music sick.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) first seen 1888 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Der Fall Wagner (1888)
“This [experimentation] is the custom—and properly so—in those sciences where mathematical demonstrations are applied to natural phenomena, as is seen in the case of perspective, astronomy, mechanics, music, and others where the principles, once established by well-chosen experiments, become the foundations of the entire superstructure.”
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) said by 1642 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“When words leave off, music begins.”
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) said by 1856 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977) by Laurence J. Peter, p. 343
“Music is a strange thing. I would almost say it is a miracle.”
Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) first seen 1837 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letters on the French Stage (1837)
“The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver. It is truly one of the things that make life worth living and it does so, if anything, more effectively if it convinces us that the time we have for living is quite finite.”
Richard Dawkins (born 1941) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the band told me last night That music is all that he's got in his life. So where does it go? Surely not with his soul. Will all of his licks and his R'n'B Blow away?”
“You talked me into the game of chance. It was '39, before the music started, When you walked up to me and you said, "Hey, heads we dance.”
“Split me open With devotion You put your hands in And rip my heart out Eat the music.”
“I'm reeling in the music, And I've only had a few... And I'm afraid by the way we grow old... My darling...”
“I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room.”
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown, Lilac and brown hair; Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair, Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair Climbing the third stair.”
T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“In Arcady there lies a crystal spring Ring'd all about with green melodious reeds Swaying seal'd music up and down the wind. Here on its time-defaced pedestal The image of a half-forgotten God Crumbles to its complete oblivion.”
Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Dropt tears have hastened your decay And brought you one step nigher death; And you have heard, unthrilled, unmoved, The music of Love's golden breath And seen the light in eyes that loved. You think you hold the core and kernel Of all the world beneath your crust, Old dial? But when you lie in dust, This vine will bloom, strong, green, and proved. Love is eternal.”
Eleanor Farjeon (1881–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) first seen 1772 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Case of the Officers of Excise (1772), p. 20
“Like ballad burthen music kept, As on the Lariano crept To that fair port, below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept; Or hardly slept, but watched awake A cypress in the moonlight shake, The moonlight touching o’er a terrace One tall agave above the lake.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Daisy" (1830)
“For now the poet can not die, Nor leave his music as of old, But round him ere he scarce be cold Begins the scandal and the cry.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1850 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To ———, after reading a Life and Letters, stanza 4, from Poems (1850)
“The night with sudden odour reeled; The southern stars a music pealed.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Rosebud, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Lead out the pageant: sad and slow, As fits an universal woe, Let the long, long procession go, And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow, And let the mournful martial music blow; The last great Englishman is low.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) said by 1892 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Far in the pillared dark Thrush music went — Almost like a call to come in To the dark and lament. But no, I was out for stars; I would not come in. I meant not even if asked; And I hadn't been.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Now Art, used collectively for painting, sculpture, architecture and music, is the mediatress between, and reconciler of, nature and man. It is, therefore, the power of humanizing nature, of infusing the thoughts and passions of man into everything which is the object of his contemplation.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) said by 1834 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory — Odours, when sweet violets sicken, Live within the sense they quicken. Rose leaves, when the rose is dead, Are heaped for the beloved's bed; And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, Love itself shall slumber on.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) first seen 1821 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Music, When Soft Voices Die (1821)
“Thy light alone like mist o'er mountains driven, Or music by the night-wind sent Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Poor captive bird! Who, from thy narrow cage, Pourest such music, that it might assuage The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee, Were they not deaf to all sweet melody.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Away, away, from men and towns, To the wild wood and the downs — To the silent wilderness Where the soul need not repress Its music lest it should not find An echo in another's mind.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Well, isn't this a Thriller. I'm delighted to see all of you here today. We haven't seen this many people since we left China. And just think, you all came to see me. No, I know why you're here, and with good reason. To see one of the most talented, most popular, and most exciting superstars in the music world today, Michael Jackson. And, Michael, welcome to the White House.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is so characteristic, that just when the mechanics of reproduction are so vastly improved, there are fewer and fewer people who know how the music should be played.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Music is the universal language of mankind — poetry their universal pastime and delight.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) first seen 1835 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Outre-Mer (1835).
“And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares, that infest the day, Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, And as silently steal away.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Henry W. Longfellow