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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.

Random quote on Music

Most quoted on music:

But a musician or someone who's into music is different.

Katie Melua

Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.

Thomas Beecham

Something new has been added, a new art of sound. Am I wrong in calling it music?

Pierre Schaeffer

Music is not material. Music is Spiritual.

Sun Ra Sun Ra : The Immeasurable Equation (2005)

Risk nothing, get nothing. If you wanna be famous, then it's OK if the music is fake, because fame isn't real.

Josh Homme

I'm inspiring a new generation who are hungry to learn music. I think that's my responsibility and it's my dream.

Yundi

Music changed more between 1963 and 1969 than it has in the 37 years since, with the Beatles among the architects of that change.

Daniel Levitin

You see, it is not enough to be a great composer. To write music like that you must be a chosen instrument of God.

Dinu Lipatti

What does seeing a bit of music, a bit of Pride [Parade], a bit of freedom take away from you? Lock yourself up at home, take a Bible and read it.

Alessandra Mussolini

The time I enjoy music most is when it’s not a performance. It’s just trading instrumentals and finding that part in the song that you feel best singing.

Carly Simon

We’re going to have a murder. Audiences like a little violence with their sex and music.

Mike Resnick Eros at Nadir (1986)

People in music want you to play small so you can make them feel better. That’s why you see so many bands break up no matter how talented they are.

Dorothy Masuka

I believe music should be a way of doing social advocacy. It should also be a way to pass messages across to people.

Shina Peters

It just felt right to enunciate and pronounce the lyrics more clearly [on The Bleeding] because I felt the music was more clearly pronounced.

Chris Barnes On changes in vocal styles between Tomb of the Mutilated and The Bleeding (2025)

Cultural descent plays a vital role in the display of every art form. Music is one such element that cannot escape this embodiment.

Janalynn Castelino

Being curious is an absolute rule of life. If you don’t have that, I don’t know what you're doing in this music.

Richie Beirach

Black music is a house of many mansions. Blacks have many musics and some of them relate in an extremely universal way to the human condition.

Undine Smith Moore

After all the years of experimenting, touring and evolving, I believe this is the moment where everything aligns again. ORIGIN8A is purpose-driven music.

Samini

When words leave off, music begins.

Heinrich Heine Peter's Quotations : Ideas for Our Time (1977)

The night with sudden odour reeled;
The southern stars a music pealed.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

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