Quotes about music

"If you can walk you can dance. If you can talk you can sing."

Proverb, Zimbabwe on music
9 fans of this quote   

"I think my fans will follow me into our combined old age. Real musicians and real fans stay together for a long, long time."

Raitt, Bonnie on music   

"If anyone has conducted a Beethoven performance, and then doesn't have to go to an osteopath, then there's something wrong."

Rattle, Simon on music   

"It was called the Backstreet Market, and it was just like a local hangout. That was where the kids would drive their cars, hang out with their convertibles and listen to music. That's how we got Backstreet. We put Boys on it, because no matter how old we get, we'll always be boys."

Richardson, Kevin on music   

"Music should never be harmless."

Robertson, Robbie on music   

"Give me a laundry list and I'll set it to music."

Rossini, Gioacchino Antonio on music   

"Music when healthy, is the teacher of perfect order, and when depraved, the teacher of perfect disorder."

Ruskin, John on music   

"Music is essentially useless, as life is."

Santayana, George on music
3 fans of this quote   

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"The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes --ah, that is where the art resides."

Schnabel, Artur on music   

"If we were all determined to play the first violin we should never have an ensemble. Therefore, respect every musician in his proper place."

Schumann, Robert on music   

"People compose for many reasons: to become immortal; because the pianoforte happens to be open; because they want to become a millionaire; because of the praise of friends; because they have looked into a pair of beautiful eyes; for no reason whatsoever."

Schumann, Robert on music   

"Music is the key to the female heart."

Seume, Johann G. on music
4 fans of this quote   

"The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. The motions of his spirit are dull as night, and his affections dark as Erebus. Let no such man be trusted."

Shakespeare, William on music
3 fans of this quote   

"Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?"

Shakespeare, William on music   

"If music be the food of love; play on."

Shakespeare, William on music
9 fans of this quote   

"Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned."

Shaw, George Bernard on music   

"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."

Shelley, Percy Bysshe on music   

"Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains."

Sousa, John Philip on music   

"Music is good to the melancholy, bad to those who mourn, and neither good or bad to the deaf."

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de) on music   

"I like Beethoven, especially the poems."

Starr, Ringo on music   

"The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musical Esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud."

Steiner, George on music   

"I think no woman I have had ever gave me so sweet a moment, or at so light a price, as the moment I owe to a newly heard musical phrase."

Stendhal, Henri B. on music   

"They said, You have a blue guitar, you do not play things as they are. The man replied, Things as they are changed upon a blue guitar."

Stevens, Wallace on music   

"The trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead."

Stravinsky, Igor on music
5 fans of this quote   

"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."

Stravinsky, Igor on music   

"A good composer does not imitate; he steals."

Stravinsky, Igor on music   

"Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra, not choreography to the audience."

Szell, George on music   

"The most perfect expression of human behavior is a string quartet."

Tate, Jeffrey on music   

"I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday, and take it in front of other people. They need to hear it, and you need them to hear it."

Taylor, James on music   

"Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work. We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to a human mind."

Thomas, Lewis on music   

"The pleasure we feel in music springs from the obedience which is in it."

Thoreau, Henry David on music   

"Music is the shorthand of emotion."

Tolstoy, Count Leo on music
6 fans of this quote   

"There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry."

Twain, Mark on music   

"We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the warmth given up by a glass of brandy."

West, Rebecca on music   

"Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains."

Whiteman, Paul on music   

"Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk."

Wilde, Oscar on music
3 fans of this quote   

"Musical people are so absurdly unreasonable. They always want one to be perfectly dumb at the very moment when one is longing to be absolutely deaf."

Wilde, Oscar on music   

"If one hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation."

Wilde, Oscar on music   

"A symphony is a stage play with the parts written for instruments instead of for actors."

Wilson, Colin on music   

"Music is a readily available, highly effective tool that you use to improve both your cognitive and physical abilities."

Winter, Arthur on music