Music's exclusive function is to structure the flow of time and keep order in it.
Music Quotes
Shakespeare has the most entries, as usual, with Claude Debussy and Wordsworth well up the list. The best-sourced line is Nietzsche’s in Twilight of the Idols (1889), that without music life would be a mistake, and Emerson’s image of the silent organ chanting loudest (Poems, 1847) is the sort of thing that rewards a second read.
The three entries with flags are all ones people like to share. “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds” is credited to Mark Twain and flagged misattributed. “You grow with music, or the music outgrows you” is credited to John Lennon, and the note says no verifiable source has been found. The line about music being the best means we have of digesting time is credited to W. H. Auden and is flagged misattributed as well.
Meat eaten without either mirth or music is ill of digestion.
A musicologist is a man who can read music but can't hear it.
I have heard
the big music
and I'll never be the same
something so pure
just called my name.
The art of music above all the other arts is the expression of the soul of a nation.
It never seems to occur to people that a man might just want to write a piece of music.
My people are American, my time is today…music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times.