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.
One whom the music of his own vain tongue
Doth ravish like enchanting harmony.
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows!
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes.
How irksome is this music to my heart!
When such strings jar, what hope of harmony?
We Japanese and other Asian people have our own special kind of sorrow.
Soprano, basso, even the contra-alto,
Wished him five fathom under the Rialto.
The soft complaining flute,
In dying notes, discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers.
Music—the language of the immortals, disclosed to us as testimony of their existence...
Yea, music is the Prophet's art
Among the gifts that God hath sent,
One of the most magnificent!
Give me some music; music, moody food
Of us that trade in love.
Listening to music engages the previously acquired personal knowledge of the listener.
Music sweeps by me as a messenger
Carrying a message that is not for me.