Quotes

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Where words fail, music speaks.
Anderson, Hans Christian
 

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
Angelou, Maya

 

It takes a lot of devotion and work, or maybe I should say play, because if you love it, that's what it amounts to. I haven't found any shortcuts, and I've been looking for a long time.

Atkins, Chet

 

Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
Auerbach, Red

 

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.
I play the notes as they are written; but it is God who makes the music.
Bach, J.S.

 

Then let us all do what is right, strive with all our might toward the unattainable, develop as fully as we can the gifts God has given us, and never stop learning.

Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.
Beethoven can write music thank God- but he can do nothing else on earth.

Music - The one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

Beethoven

 

Instrumentation is, in music, the exact equivalent of color in painting.

Benchley, Richard

Music . . . can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.
Bernstein
 

It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain; of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.

Carlyle, Thomas

 

Music is well said to be the speech of angels; in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man is felt to be so divine. It brings us near to the infinite.

Britten, Benjamin
 

The greatest respect an artist can pay to music is to give it life.

Casals, Pablo

 

Song is the sign of an unburdened heart.

Chambers, Oswald

 

An artist should never lose sight of the thing as a whole.  He who puts too much into details will find that the thread which holds the whole thing together will break.

Chopin, Frederick

 

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.'

Copland, Aaron


Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.

Confucius

Without music, life is a journey through a desert.
Conroy, Pat

Music is an outburst of the soul.
Delius, Frederick

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

Davis, Miles
 

Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best.

Dyke, Henry Van

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.
There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
Eliot, George

You are the music while the music lasts.
Eliot, T. S.

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

Erskine, John

 

You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.

Floyd, Doug
 

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

Green, Benny

 

Each of us is climbing a mountain called 'Music'. The mountain remains, but the climbers are forever changed.
Guy, Suzanne

 

Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.

Harburg, Edgar Yipsel

 

Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing.

Harshaw, Jubal

When words leave off, music begins.
Heine, Heinrich

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.

Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them!

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

 

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

Hugo, Victor

 

Music is the medicine of the breaking heart.

Hunt, Leigh

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

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
 

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.  Great works are performed, not by strength, but perseverance.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

Johnson, Samuel

 

There is nothing better than music as a means for uplifting the soul.
Khan, Hazrat Inayat

It's OK to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in information.
Keller, Helen

 

There is no such thing as a Difficult Piece. A piece is either impossible - or it is easy. The process whereby it migrates from one category to the other is known as practicing.

Kentner, Louis

Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends.
Lamartine, Alphonse

Music is Love in search of a word.
Lanier, Sidney

There are two kinds of music - good music and bad music. Good music is music that I want to hear. Bad music is music that I don't want to hear.
Lebowitz, Fran

Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.
Leibniz, Gottfried

A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling 'darkness' on the wall of his cell...
Lewis, C.S.

My job is to get you to do what you don't want to do, so that you'll be able to do what you've always wanted to do.
Lombardi, Vince

The devil won't stay where there is music.
Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.
My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.
The devil flies from music, especially from sacred music, because he is a despairing spirit, and cannot bear joy and gladness.
Luther, Martin

What is best in music is not to be found in the notes.
If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music.
Mahler, Gustav

Unless you try to do something beyond what you've already mastered, you will never grow.
Maxwell, John

Though everything else may appear shallow and repulsive, even the smallest task in music is so absorbing, and carries us so far away from town, country, earth, and all worldly things, that it is a truly blessed gift of God.
Mendelssohn, Felix

Music creates order out of chaos: for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous.
Menuhin, Yehudi

Music like religion, unconditionally brings in its train all the moral virtues to the heart it enters, even though that heart is not in the least worthy.
Montegut, Jean Baptiste

If only the whole world could feel the power of harmony.
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus

Without music, life would be a mistake.
Nietzsche, Friedrich

Hug a musician...they never get to dance.
Nirhoff, Dick

I am always doing things I can't do, that's how I get to do them.
Picasso, Pablo

Music training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm  and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul.

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life to everything. It is the essence of order and lends itself to all that is good and just and beautiful.
Plato
 

There are a million things in music I know nothing about. I just want to narrow down that figure.

Previn, Andre

Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.
Rachmaninoff, Sergei

Music is moonlight in the gloomy nights of life.
Richter, Jean Paul

People are flowers. Music is water.  Musicians are the hose.
Santana, Carlos 

 

The earth has music for those who listen.

Santayana, George


I always make sure that the lid over the keyboard is open before I start to play.

Schnabel, Artur

 

Music is only understood when one goes away singing it and only loved when one falls asleep with it in one's head, and finds it still there on waking up the next morning.

Schoenberg, Arnold

 

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Schweitzer, Albert

 

Here we will sit and let the sounds of music creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony.

When griping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind oppresses, then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress.

Shakespeare, William

 

I love Beethoven, especially the poems.

Starr, Ringo

 

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

Stokowski, Leopold

 

My music is best understood by children and animals.

The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead.
Stravinsky, Igor

Do not have your concert first, and then tune your instrument afterwards. Begin the day with the Word of God and prayer, and get first of all into harmony with Him.
Taylor, Hudson

Music is the shorthand of emotion.

Truman, Fisher

 

The pause is as important as the note.

Tolstoy, Leo

Mozart's music gives us permission to live.
Updike, John

Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all.
Walcha, Helmut

Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.
Wilde, Oscar

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.
There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something, we'd all love one another.
Zappa, Frank


Contact ~ Kristin Phillips @ 503-780-5986
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