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.
Their heavenly harps a lower strain began,
And in soft music mourn the fall of man.
My music had roots which I'd dug up from my own childhood, musical roots buried in the darkest soil.
Music was destined to reach its culmination in the likeness of itself.
Music falls on the silence like a sense,
A passion that we feel, not understand.
When I want to play music, you've got to get me on tape or else it goes.
Pagers are my life--I try to get them in to our music as much as possible.
I suspect music is the only profession harder than writing in which to make a living.
Hears the music under the rock
One of these days he'll stop
Don't stop when the music stops.
Music is a pastime, a relaxation from more serious occupations.