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.
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to Heav'n.
Though music oft hath such a charm
To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.
Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.
To blow is not to play on the flute; you must move the fingers.
When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathéd horn.
As in an organ from one blast of wind
To many a row of pipes the soundboard breathes.