It is a wise tune that knows its own father, and I like my music to be the legitimate offspring of respectable parents.
—Samuel Butler
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.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French Poet, Playwright, Film Director
Cherish your visions. Cherish your ideals. Cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.
—James Allen (1864–1912) British Philosophical Writer
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
—G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English Journalist, Novelist, Essayist, Poet
The effects of good music are not just because it’s new; on the contrary music strikes us more the more familiar we are with it.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
I was a veteran before I was a teenager.
—Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American Singer-Songwriter
Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.
—Frank Zappa (1940–93) American Rock Guitarist, Singer, Composer
For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which, like every creation of art, is mightier than the artist.
—Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Composer, Musician
Next to theology I give to music the highest place and honor. And we see how David and all the saints have wrought their godly thoughts into verse, rhyme, and song.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
What will be the judgment a century hence concerning the lorded works of our favorite composers today? Inasmuch as nearly everything is subject to the changes of time, and – more’s the pity- the fashions of time, only that which is good and true will endure like a rock and no wanton hand will ever venture to defile it. Then, let every man do that which is right, strive with all his might towards the goal which can never be obtained, develop to the last breath the gifts with which the gracious Creator has endowed him, and never cease to learn. For life is short, art eternal.
—Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Composer, Musician
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.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Rock and Roll: Music for the neck downwards.
—Keith Richards (b.1943) English Singer, Songwriter, Musician, Actor
There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Music wakes the soul, and lifts it high, and wings it with sublime desires, and fits it to bespeak the Deity.
—Joseph Addison (1672–1719) English Essayist, Poet, Playwright, Politician
Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Music, the mosaic of the air.
—Andrew Marvell (1621–78) English Metaphysical Poet
If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing.
—African Proverb
Music is mediator between spiritual and sensual life.
—Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) German Composer, Musician
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.
—Frank Zappa (1940–93) American Rock Guitarist, Singer, Composer
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.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Music, in the best sense, does not require novelty; nay, the older it is, and the more we are accustomed to it, the greater its effect.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
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.
—Claude Levi-Strauss (1908–2009) French Social Anthropologist, Philosopher
I am always writing a potpourri of music. I want to give the world escapism through the wonder of great music and to reach the masses.
—Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American Singer-Songwriter
To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
—Aaron Copland (1900–90) American Composer, Pianist, Conductor
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
—Anonymous
Music is part of us, and either ennobles or degrades our behavior
—Boethius (c.480–524 CE) Roman Statesman, Philosopher
You cannot have your cake and eat it.
—Unknown
There is something marvelous in music. I might almost say it is, in itself, a marvel. Its position is somewhere between the region of thought and that of phenomena; a glimmering medium between mind and matter, related to both and yet differing from either. Spiritual, and yet requiring rhythm; material, and yet independent of space.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. It wanders perturbedly through the halls and galleries of the memory, and is often heard again, distinct and living, as when it first displaced the wavelets of the air.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
Mozart has the classic purity of light and the blue ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal peaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (1821–81) Swiss Moral Philosopher, Poet, Critic
It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites—opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity—where energies flow smoothly in one direction—there will be much doing but no music.
—Eric Hoffer (1902–83) American Philosopher, Author
If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
He had always wanted to write Music and he could give no other identity to the thing he sought. If you want to know what it is, he told himself, listen to the first phrases of Tchaikowsky’s First Concerto, or the last movement of Rachmaninoff’s Second. Men have not found the words for it nor the deed nor the thought, but they have found the Music. Let me see that in one single act of man on earth. Let me see it made real. Let me see the answer to the promise of that Music. Not servants nor those served; not altars and immolations; but the final, the fulfilled, innocent of pain. Don’t help me or serve me, but let me see it once, because I need it. Don’t work for my happiness, my brothers – Show me yours – show me that it is possible – show me your achievement – and the knowledge will give me courage for mine.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
If one hears bad music, it is one’s duty to drown it by one’s conversation.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Next to theology I give music the highest place of honor.
—Martin Luther (1483–1546) German Protestant Theologian
Music is the only sensual pleasure without vice.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Music causes us to think eloquently.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
I always seem to have a vague feeling that he is a Satan among musicians, a fallen angel in the darkness who is perpetually seeking to fight his way back to happiness.
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British Sexologist, Physician, Social Reformer
Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie.
—John Milton (1608–74) English Poet, Civil Servant, Scholar, Debater
I was made a revolutionary in spite of myself… [A]ll creation presupposes as its origin a sort of appetite that is brought on by the foretaste of discovery. This foretaste of the creative art accompanies the intuitive grasp of an unknown entity that will not take definite shape except by the action of a constantly vigilant technique. This appetite that is aroused in me at the mere thought of putting in order musical elements that have attracted my attention is not at all a fortuitous thing like inspiration, but as habitual and periodic, if not constant, as a natural need… The very act of putting my work on paper, of, as we say, kneading the dough, is for me inseperable from the pleasure of creation. So far as I am concerned, I cannot seperate the spiritual effort from the psychological and physical effort; they confront me on the same level and do not present a hierarchy…What concerns us here is not imagination itself, but rather creative imagination: the facultyy that helps us to pass from the level of conception to the level of realization. In the course of my labors I suddenly stumble upon something unexpected. this unexpected element strikes me. I make note of it. At the proper time I put it to profitable use… The faculty of creating is never given to us all by itself. It always goes hand in hand with the gift of observation. And the true creator may be recognized by his ability always to find about him, in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note… The least accident holds his interest and guides his operations. If his finger slips, he will notice it; on occasion, he may draw profit from something unforeseen that a momentary lapse reveals to him. One does not contrive an accident: one observes it to draw inspiration therefrom.
—Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971) Russian-born American Composer, Musician
We are the music makers,
We are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams-
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams;
We are the movers and shakers
Of the world forever, it seems.
—Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1844–81) British Poet, Herpetologist
The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.
—Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) German Composer, Musician