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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:

I like playing music because it's a good living and I get satisfaction from it. But I can't feed my family with satisfaction.

James Hetfield

I write music to celebrate life. I think most artists do, no matter how they themselves describe it. It's the joy of creating. It's a way of life.

Chick Corea

Before industrial civilization, local and regional communities made their own music, their own entertainment.

Robert Crumb The R. Crumb Handbook by Robert Crumb and Peter Poplaski (2005)

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine.

Ernest Dowson Verses (1896)

Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours.

Elton John

Polyphonic painting is superior to music in that, here, the time element becomes a spatial element. The notion of simultaneity stands out even more richly.

Paul Klee

This is a song about the reason we all came down here today, and that's because we (expletive) love music. This is a crowd-surfing song.

Bert McCracken

Ah, me! the vision has vanished—
The music has died away!

William Wetmore Story Poems of William Wetmore Story (1885)

Sweet maidenhood! that to a silvery chime
Of music, and chaste fancies undefiled,
And modest grace and mild
Comëst, best gift of God to men.

Lewis Morris

Every object has its note and the combination of them all makes the music. There is not much point just having the lead violin and the piano.

Nasser Khalili

It is true that sometimes people think I have given up on music and singing but that is not the case. Even when I went to study music, I was still doing music.

Miss Shanel

I believe in the power of music to bring people together.

Blanche Bailly

My mom was obsessed with Manu Chao when I grew up, so he was always playing in our house. My dad is a piano and classical music lover.

Manon Bannerman

Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

China also passed on to Japan the ceremonial dances of India with their music, which were Japanized as the solemn and colorful Bugaku.

Curt Sachs

There was this chemistry between me and Adrian that went beyond the music.

Dave Murray

Until I die there will be sounds. And they will continue following my death. One need not fear about the future of music.

John Cage

The music that can deepest reach,
And cure all ill, is cordial speech.

Ralph Waldo Emerson May-Day and Other Pieces (1867)

I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.

T. S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

He murmurs near the running brooks
A music sweeter than their own.

William Wordsworth A Poet's Epitaph (1799)

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