Quotes about music

"It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives it most distinctive characteristics."

Johnson, James Weldon on music   

"Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible."

Johnson, Samuel on music   

"It is the only sensual pleasure without vice."

Johnson, Samuel on music   

"'Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end."

Jonson, Ben on music   

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"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter."

Keats, John on music   

"Music is the vernacular of the human soul."

Latham, Geoffrey on music   

"I resent performing for frisking idiots who don't know anything."

Lennon, John on music   

"Since music is a language with some meaning at least for the immense majority of mankind, although only a tiny minority of people are capable of formulating a meaning in it, and since it is the only language with the contradictory attributes of being at once intelligible and untranslatable, the musical creator is a being comparable to the gods, and music itself the supreme mystery of the science of man, a mystery that all the various disciplines come up against and which holds the key to their progress."

Levi-Strauss, Claude on music   

"The musical emotion springs precisely from the fact that at each moment the composer withholds or adds more or less than the listener anticipates on the basis of a pattern that he thinks he can guess, but that he is incapable of wholly divining. If the composer withholds more than we anticipate, we experience a delicious falling sensation; we feel we have been torn from a stable point on the musical ladder and thrust into the void. When the composer withholds less, the opposite occurs: he forces us to perform gymnastic exercises more skillful than our own."

Levi-Strauss, Claude on music   

"Just as certain selections of music will nourish your physical body and your emotional layer, so other musical works will bring greater health to your mind."

Lingerman, Hal A. on music
5 fans of this quote   

"I have no pleasure in any man who despises music. It is no invention of ours: it is a gift of God. I place it next to theology. Satan hates music: he knows how it drives the evil spirit out of us."

Luther, Martin on music   

"Next to theology I give music the highest place of honor."

Luther, Martin on music
4 fans of this quote   

"People whose sensibility is destroyed by music in trains, airports, lifts, cannot concentrate on a Beethoven Quartet."

Lutoslawski, Witold on music   

"A woman's two cents worth is worth two cents in the music business."

Lynn, Loretta on music   

"There is something suspicious about music, gentlemen. I insist that she is, by her nature, equivocal. I shall not be going too far in saying at once that she is politically suspect."

Mann, Thomas on music   

"We fight our way through the massed and leveled collective safe taste of the Top 40, just looking for a little something we can call our own. But when we find it and jam the radio to hear it again it isn't just ours -- it is a link to thousands of others who are sharing it with us. As a matter of a single song this might mean very little; as culture, as a way of life, you can't beat it."

Marcus, Greil on music   

"Modern music is as dangerous as narcotics."

Mascagni, Pietro on music   

"The opera is to music what a bawdy house is to a cathedral."

Mencken, H. L. on music   

"Music is a beautiful opiate, if you don't take it too seriously."

Miller, Henry on music   

"Such sweet compulsion doth in music lie."

Milton, John on music   

"Music is spiritual. The music business is not."

Morrison, Van on music
8 fans of this quote   

"Like everything else in nature, music is a becoming, and it becomes its full self, when its sounds and laws are used by intelligent man for the production of harmony, and so made the vehicle of emotion and thought."

Mungers, Theodore on music   

"Rock 'n Roll is an asylum for emotional idiots."

Neville, Richard on music   

"A good composer is slowly discovered a bad composer is slowly found out."

Newman, Ernest on music   

"Only sick music makes money today."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on music
4 fans of this quote   

"Without music, life would be a mistake."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on music
10 fans of this quote   

"Without music, life would be an error. The German imagines even God singing songs"

Nietzsche, Friedrich on music   

"I often thought that if there had been a good rap group around in those days, I might have chosen a career in music instead of politics."

Nixon, Richard M. on music   

"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."

Nye, Bill on music   

"Rock 'n Roll is monotony tinged with hysteria."

Packard, Vance on music   

"Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art."

Parker, Charlie on music
3 fans of this quote   

"All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music."

Pater, Walter on music   

"You don't need any brains to listen to music."

Pavarotti, Luciano on music
3 fans of this quote   

"Music and woman I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is."

Pepys, Samuel on music   

"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue."

Plato on music
6 fans of this quote   

"For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions."

Plato on music   

"Medicine to produce health must examine disease; and music, to create harmony must investigate discord."

Plutarch on music   

"The author's conviction on this day of New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement."

Pound, Ezra on music   

"There once was a brainy baboon who always breathed down a bassoon for he said, It appears that in billions of years I shall certainly hit on a tune."

Pound, Ezra on music   

"I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to."

Presley, Elvis on music