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A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them;
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!

— Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

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More quotes by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a deal longer.

The Professor at the Breakfast Table (1859)

All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called “facts.” They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtasked.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

A thought is often original, though you have uttered it a hundred times. It has come to you over a new route, by a new and express train of associations.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great scholars great men.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)

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The emphasis of study upon a particular aspect of music is in itself ideological because it contains implications about the music's value.

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Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

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Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

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Above the pitch, out of tune, and off the hinges.

François Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel (1532)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.