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.
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.
We get nearer to the Lord through music than perhaps through any other thing except prayer.
Who shall silence all the airs and madrigals that whisper softness in chambers?
I am advised to give her music o' mornings; they say it will penetrate.
We're blues people. And blues never lets tragedy have the last word.
The musician who always makes a mistake on the same string, is laughed at.
It sank deep into his heart, like the melody of a song sounding from out of childhood's days.
Soft is the music that would charm forever;
The flower of sweetest smell is shy and lowly.
'T is believ'd that this harp which I wake now for thee
Was a siren of old who sung under the sea.