When the music changes, so does the dance. —African proverb
Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven. —Henri Frederic Amiel
Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. —Laurie Anderson
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. —Maya Angelou, Gather Together in My Name
I never tried to prove nothing, just wanted to give a good show. My life has always been my music, it’s always come first; but the music ain’t worth nothing if you can’t lay it on the public. The main thing is to live for that audience, ’cause what you’re there for is to please the people. —Louis Armstrong
Most people live and die with their music still unplayed. They never dare to try. —Mary Kay Ash
No good opera plot can be sensible, for people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. —W. H. Auden
Music is the best means we have of digesting time. —W. H. Auden
No good opera plot can be sensible . . . people do not sing when they are feeling sensible. —W. H. Auden, Time (December 29, 1961)
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. —Berthold Auerbach
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
The discovery of song and the creation of musical instruments both owed their origin to a human impulse which lies much deeper than conscious intention: the need for rhythm in life . . . the need is a deep one, transcending thought, and disregarded at our peril. —Richard Baker
Any good music must be an innovation. —Les Baxter
Music cleanses the understanding; inspires it, and lifts it into a realm which it would not reach if it were left to itself. —Henry Ward Beecher
Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks, and invents. —Ludwig van Beethoven
Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. —Ludwig von Beethoven
Music is the wine which inspires one to new generative processes, and I am Bacchus who presses out this glorious wine for mankind and makes them spiritually drunken. —Ludwig van Beethoven
Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings. —Robert Benchley
Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate. —Arnold Bennett
Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love. —Louis-Hector Berlioz
The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial. —Leonard Bernstein
Music can change the world because it can change people. —Bono
Music is one of the best ways to enjoy the present. It’s not much fun to look forward to hearing music or to remember what a song sounded like last week, but music right now absorbs you and places you in the present moment. —Sonnett Branche
It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony. —Benjamin Britten
Rock music in its lyrics often talks ahead of the time about what’s going on in the country. —Edmund G. Brown
There is no truer truth obtainable by man than comes of music. —Robert Browning
He who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once. —Robert Browning
Life can’t be all bad when, for ten dollars, you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years. —William F. Buckley, Jr.
Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. —Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
If this word “music” is sacred and reserved for eighteenth and nineteenth century instruments, we can substitute a more meaningful term: organization of sound. —John Cage
All deep things are song. It seems somehow it’s the very central essence of us. —Thomas Carlyle
Music is well said to be the speech of angels. —Thomas Carlyle, Essays, The Opera
If you look deep enough you will see music; the heart of nature being everywhere music. —Thomas Carlyle
He who sings scares away his woes. —Cervantes
[An intellectual] is someone who can listen to the “William Tell Overture” without thinking of the Lone Ranger. —John Chesson
An artist, in giving a concert, should not demand an entrance fee, but should ask the public to pay just before leaving as much as they like. From the sum he would be able to judge what the world thinks of him—and we would have fewer mediocre concerts. —Kit Coleman, Kit Coleman: Queen of Hearts
Music is the art of thinking with sounds. —Jules Combarieu
Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. —Confucius
Music hath charms to soothe a savage beast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak. —William Congreve
Without music, life is a journey through a desert. —Pat Conroy
Most people use music as a couch; they want to be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be soporific. —Aaron Copland
To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable. —Aaron Copland
What we provide is an atmosphere . . . of orchestrated pulse which works on people in a subliminal way. Under its influence I’ve seen shy debs and severe dowagers kick off their shoes and raise some wholesome hell. —Meyer Davis, about his orchestra
Music is an outburst of the soul. —Frederick Delius
Composers shouldn’t think too much—it interferes with their plagiarism. —Howard Dietz
Were it not for music, we might in these days say, the beautiful is dead. —Benjamin Disraeli
What passion cannot music raise and quell! —John Dryden
Silence is the fabric upon which the notes are woven. —Lawrence Duncan
Music is only love looking for words. —Lawrence Durrell
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. —Albert Einstein
My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require. —Edward Elgar
You are the music while the music lasts. —T. S. Eliot
I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms, could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and a medicine. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Music takes us out of the actual and whispers to us dim secrets that startle our wonder as to who we are, and for what, whence, and whereto. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
If in the after life there is not music, we will have to import it. —Doménico Cieri Estrada
The pause is as important as the note. —Truman Fisher
Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence. —Robert Fripp
Music is nothing else but wild sounds civilized into time and tune. —Thomas Fuller
Music is love in search of a word. —Sidonie Gabrielle
I don’t care much about music. What I like is sounds. —Dizzy Gillespie
A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges. —Benny Green
Music is a friend of labor for it lightens the task by refreshing the nerves and spirit of the worker. —William Green
Music happens to be an art form that transcends language. —Herbie Hancock
Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought. —E. Y. Harburg
Music is the soul of language. —Max Heindel
When words leave off, music begins. —Heinrich Heine
Music is my religion. —Jimi Hendrix
Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music. —Jimi Hendrix
The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven’t got the joke yet. —Oliver Herford
Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. —Oliver Wendell Holmes
Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them! —Oliver Wendell Holmes
Country music is three chords and the truth. —Harlan Howard
When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have. —Edgar Watson Howe
Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. —Frank McKinney “Kin” Hubbard, Comments of Abe Martin and His Neighbors, 1923
Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. —Ken Hubbard
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. —Victor Hugo
Music is the medicine of the breaking heart. —Leigh Hunt
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. —Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays
Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words. —Robert G. Ingersoll
A song has a few rights the same as ordinary citizens . . . if it happens to feel like flying where humans cannot fly . . . to scale mountains that are not there, who shall stop it? —Charles Ives
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. —Billy Joel
Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends. —Alphonse de Lamartine
Music is God’s gift to man, the only art of Heaven given to earth, the only art of earth we take to Heaven. —Walter Savage Landor
If you want to be found stand where the seeker seeks. —Sidney Lanier
Virtues are acquired through endeavor, which rests wholly upon yourself. —Sidney Lanier
Music is love in search of a word. —Sydney Lanier
It is incontestable that music induces in us a sense of the infinite and the contemplation of the invisible. —Victor de LaPrade
Music is the vernacular of the human soul. —Geoffrey Latham
The pleasure we obtain from music comes from counting, but counting unconsciously. Music is nothing but unconscious arithmetic. —Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Music is everyone’s possession. It’s only publishers who think people own it. —John Lennon
You can’t possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven’s Seventh and go slow. —Oscar Levant, explaining his way out of a speeding ticket
My whole trick is to keep the tune well out in front. If I play Tchaikovsky, I play his melodies and skip his spiritual struggle. —Liberace
Music’s the medicine of the mind. —John A. Logan
Music is the universal language of mankind. —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. —Gustav Mahler
Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music. —Marcel Marceau
One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. —Bob Marley
Music is the harmonious voice of creation; an echo of the invisible world. —Giuseppe Mazzini
If the King loves music, it is well with the land. —Mencius
There is nothing in the world so much like prayer as music is. —William P. Merrill
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music. —Angela Monet
You can’t stay the same. If you’re a musician and a singer, you have to change, that’s the way it works. —Van Morrison
Without music, life would be an error. —Friedrich Nietzsche
In music the passions enjoy themselves. —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together. —Richard M. Nixon
Music is what life sounds like. —Eric Olson
I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality. —H. A. Overstreet
Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn. They teach you there’s a boundary line to music. But, man, there’s no boundary line to art. —Charlie Parker
Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life. —Jean Paul
Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue. —Plato
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. —Plato
Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul. —Plato
Music rots when it gets too far from the dance. Poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music. —Ezra Pound
I don’t know anything about music. In my line you don’t have to. —Elvis Presley
Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket. —Henri Rabaud
Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music —Sergei Rachmaninov
If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn’t have to go to an osteopath, then there’s something wrong. —Simon Rattle
Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music. —Ronald Reagan
Music is the poetry of the air. —Jean Paul Richter
Music is moonlight in the gloomy night of life. —Jean Paul Richter
Truly to sing, that is a different breath. —Rainer Maria Rilke
The scratches in Yoko Ono records are moments of relief. —S. A. Sachs
Music has been my playmate, my lover, and my crying towel. —Buffy Sainte-Marie
When I don’t like a piece of music, I make a point of listening to it more closely. —Florent Schmitt
The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides! —Artur Schnabel
Wes Montgomery played impossible things on the guitar because it was never pointed out to him that they were impossible. —Ronnie Scott
The advice I am giving always to all my students is above all to study the music profoundly . . . music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees. —Andres Segovia
If music be the food of love, play on; give me excess of it. —William Shakespeare
Hell is full of musical amateurs. —George Bernard Shaw
Music is forever; music should grow and mature with you, following you right on up until you die. —Paul Simon
Sometimes even music can’t substitute for tears. —Paul Simon
If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth. —Sydney Smith
Everywhere in the world, music enhances a hall, with one exception: Carnegie Hall enhances the music. —Isaac Stern
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. —Leopold Stokowski
Music fills the infinite between two souls. —Rabindranath Tagore
All music is beautiful. —Billy Strayhorn
The city is built
To music, therefore never built at all,
And therefore built forever.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson
I’ve never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down. —Virgil Thomson
Music is perpetual, and only the hearing is intermittent. —Henry David Thoreau
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. —Henry David Thoreau
Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. —Henry David Thoreau
When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest. —Henry David Thoreau
Music is a performance and needs the audience. —Michael Tippett
Music is the shorthand of emotion. —Leo Tolstoy
I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else. —Lily Tomlin
Why waste money on psychotherapy when you can listen to the B Minor Mass? —Michael Torke
Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. —Lao Tzu
Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all. —Helmut Walcha
No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve in quality as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing it is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives; and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them, we may forget altogether to live them. —Alan Watts
Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory. —Oscar Wilde
In memory, everything seems to happen to music. —Tennessee Williams
There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something, we’d all love one another. —Frank Zappa
Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something. —Frank Zappa
If you can walk, you can dance. If you can talk, you can sing. —Zimbabwe Proverb
Most of us go to our graves with our music still inside of us. —Author Unknown
Play the music, not the instrument. —Author Unknown