Music Quotes

Music is one of the oldest and most universal parts of human life. Every culture on earth has its own songs, rhythms and instruments, from the ragas of Carnatic and Hindustani music to European symphonies, folk songs and modern pop. Music can lift our mood, bring back memories, comfort us in sorrow and bring strangers together in celebration.

This collection brings together 200 of the best music quotes, from ancient thinkers like Plato and Confucius and great composers like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart to poets, saints and modern musicians. You'll find quotes about the power of music, its connection to the soul, music and emotion, and the joy of making and listening to it. For more, explore our [Art Quotes](/topics/art-quotes) and [Imagination Quotes](/topics/imagination-quotes).

## Ancient Wisdom on Music

1. Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul. Author: Plato Tags: Education, Soul

2. Music has the power of forming the character, and should therefore be introduced into the education of the young. Author: Aristotle Tags: Character, Education

3. There is geometry in the humming of the strings, there is music in the spacing of the spheres. Author: Attributed to Pythagoras Tags: Harmony, Universe

4. Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. Author: Attributed to Confucius Tags: Joy, Human Nature

5. Let a man be stimulated by poetry, established by the rules of propriety, perfected by music. Author: Confucius Tags: Character, Growth

6. Sound is God. Author: Indian Saying (Nada Brahma) Tags: Spirituality, Short Quotes

7. Of the Vedas I am the Sama Veda. Author: The Bhagavad Gita Tags: Sacred Music, Faith

8. Without devotion, knowledge of music does not lead to the right path. Author: Thyagaraja Tags: Devotion, Carnatic Music

9. The unstruck music sounds within; listen, and you will hear it. Author: Kabir Tags: Inner Music, Spirituality

## Music in Faith and Scripture

10. Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise. Author: The Bible (Psalm 98:4) Tags: Praise, Joy

11. Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Author: The Bible (Psalm 150:4) Tags: Praise, Instruments

12. Teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. Author: The Bible (Colossians 3:16) Tags: Hymns, Faith

13. David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well. Author: The Bible (1 Samuel 16:23) Tags: Healing, Harp

14. Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world. Author: Martin Luther Tags: Treasure, Faith

## Poets and Writers on Music

15. If music be the food of love, play on. Author: William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night) Tags: Love, Short Quotes

16. The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils. Author: William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice) Tags: Character, Harmony

17. Music has charms to soothe a savage breast. Author: William Congreve Tags: Calm, Healing

18. Untwisting all the chains that tie the hidden soul of harmony. Author: John Milton Tags: Harmony, Poetry

19. What passion cannot Music raise and quell! Author: John Dryden Tags: Emotion, Power

20. Music, the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below. Author: Joseph Addison Tags: Joy, Heaven

21. Music is well said to be the speech of angels. Author: Thomas Carlyle Tags: Angels, Beauty

22. Music is the universal language of mankind. Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Tags: Universal Language, Humanity

23. Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. Author: Victor Hugo Tags: Expression, Emotion

24. Where words fail, music speaks. Author: Hans Christian Andersen Tags: Expression, Short Quotes

25. Without music, life would be a mistake. Author: Friedrich Nietzsche Tags: Life, Short Quotes

26. Music is the melody whose text is the world. Author: Arthur Schopenhauer Tags: Philosophy, World

27. I call architecture frozen music. Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Tags: Architecture, Art

28. Music is the shorthand of emotion. Author: Attributed to Leo Tolstoy Tags: Emotion, Short Quotes

29. Music is the poetry of the air. Author: Jean Paul Richter Tags: Poetry, Short Quotes

30. Who hears music, feels his solitude peopled at once. Author: Robert Browning Tags: Loneliness, Comfort

31. Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body. Author: Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Tags: Soul, Wellbeing

32. Where words leave off, music begins. Author: Heinrich Heine Tags: Expression, Short Quotes

33. Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Author: Berthold Auerbach Tags: Renewal, Soul

34. God respects me when I work, but He loves me when I sing. Author: Rabindranath Tagore Tags: Singing, Faith

35. I touch God in my song as the hill touches the far-away sea with its waterfall. Author: Rabindranath Tagore Tags: Devotion, Poetry

36. Music is the highest art, and to those who understand, is the highest worship. Author: Swami Vivekananda Tags: Worship, Art

37. Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife. Author: Kahlil Gibran Tags: Spirit, Peace

## Great Composers on Music

38. The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. Author: Johann Sebastian Bach Tags: Purpose, Faith

39. Since God has given me a cheerful heart, He will forgive me for serving Him cheerfully. Author: Joseph Haydn Tags: Joy, Faith

40. Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. Author: Attributed to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Tags: Genius, Love

41. Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life. Author: Attributed to Ludwig van Beethoven Tags: Spirit, Life

42. Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman. Author: Attributed to Ludwig van Beethoven Tags: Passion, Emotion

43. Truly there would be reason to go mad were it not for music. Author: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Tags: Comfort, Sanity

44. Love cannot express the idea of music, while music may give an idea of love. Author: Hector Berlioz Tags: Love, Expression

45. The thoughts which are expressed to me by music that I love are not too indefinite to be put into words, but on the contrary, too definite. Author: Felix Mendelssohn Tags: Expression, Meaning

46. To send light into the darkness of men's hearts: such is the duty of the artist. Author: Robert Schumann Tags: Purpose, Light

47. If a composer could say what he had to say in words he would not bother trying to say it in music. Author: Gustav Mahler Tags: Composing, Expression

48. Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind. Author: Attributed to Johannes Brahms Tags: Craft, Practice

49. Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things. Author: Igor Stravinsky Tags: Order, Purpose

50. Music is the space between the notes. Author: Attributed to Claude Debussy Tags: Silence, Short Quotes

## Jazz and 20th-Century Musicians on Music

51. Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them. Author: Louis Armstrong Tags: Passion, Lifelong Music

52. If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know. Author: Attributed to Louis Armstrong Tags: Jazz, Feeling

53. There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind. Author: Duke Ellington Tags: Good Music, Wit

54. A problem is a chance for you to do your best. Author: Duke Ellington Tags: Challenges, Attitude

55. The only thing better than singing is more singing. Author: Attributed to Ella Fitzgerald Tags: Singing, Joy

56. Do not fear mistakes. There are none. Author: Miles Davis Tags: Mistakes, Creativity

57. It's not the notes you play, it's the notes you don't play. Author: Attributed to Miles Davis Tags: Silence, Jazz

58. Master your instrument, master the music, and then forget all that and just play. Author: Attributed to Charlie Parker Tags: Practice, Freedom

59. The piano ain't got no wrong notes. Author: Thelonious Monk Tags: Piano, Creativity

60. I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Author: Ray Charles Tags: Passion, Identity

61. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times. Author: Nina Simone Tags: Artists, Purpose

62. Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music. Author: Attributed to Jimi Hendrix Tags: Truth, Change

63. I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. Author: Billy Joel Tags: Healing, Humanity

64. Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. Author: Frank Zappa Tags: Originality, Progress

## Conductors, Composers and Performers

65. This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. Author: Leonard Bernstein Tags: Hope, Courage

66. Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable. Author: Leonard Bernstein Tags: Expression, Mystery

67. Because I think I'm making progress. Author: Attributed to Pablo Casals (asked at 93 why he still practised) Tags: Practice, Lifelong Learning

68. Music creates order out of chaos. Author: Yehudi Menuhin Tags: Order, Calm

69. A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. Author: Leopold Stokowski Tags: Silence, Art

70. Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music. Author: Sergei Rachmaninoff Tags: Passion, Lifelong Music

71. There is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require. Author: Edward Elgar Tags: Inspiration, Nature

72. Simplicity is the final achievement. Author: Attributed to Frédéric Chopin Tags: Simplicity, Mastery

73. To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable. Author: Aaron Copland Tags: Time, Music

74. I have nothing to say and I am saying it. Author: John Cage Tags: Silence, Wit

## Music and Emotion

75. Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness. Author: Maya Angelou Tags: Refuge, Loneliness

76. If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph: The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music. Author: Kurt Vonnegut Tags: Faith, Wit

77. After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. Author: Aldous Huxley Tags: Silence, Expression

78. If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. Author: Albert Einstein Tags: Science, Daydreams

79. There's no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music. Author: George Eliot Tags: Emotion, Relief

80. Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought. Author: E. Y. Harburg Tags: Songs, Emotion

81. Music makes one feel so romantic, at least it always gets on one's nerves, which is the same thing nowadays. Author: Oscar Wilde Tags: Romance, Funny

82. Wagner's music is better than it sounds. Author: Bill Nye (popularised by Mark Twain) Tags: Funny, Classical Music

83. There's music in the sighing of a reed; there's music in the gushing of a rill; there's music in all things, if men had ears. Author: Lord Byron Tags: Nature, Listening

84. When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. Author: Henry David Thoreau Tags: Courage, Strength

85. If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Author: Henry David Thoreau Tags: Individuality, Rhythm

## Music as Healing

86. Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears. It is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear. Author: Oliver Sacks Tags: Healing, Mood

87. Every disease is a musical problem; every cure is a musical solution. Author: Novalis Tags: Healing, Harmony

88. Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours. Author: Attributed to Elton John Tags: Healing, Escape

89. Music is a language that doesn't speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it's in the bones, it's in the bones. Author: Keith Richards Tags: Emotion, Language

90. Music is a fair and glorious gift of God. Author: Martin Luther Tags: Gift, Faith

## Indian and Spiritual Voices on Music

91. Music has no religion. Author: Attributed to Ustad Bismillah Khan Tags: Unity, Shehnai

92. Music, the word we use in our everyday language, is nothing less than the picture of our Beloved. Author: Hazrat Inayat Khan Tags: Sufi Music, Devotion

93. The whole of life in all its aspects is music. Author: Hazrat Inayat Khan Tags: Life, Harmony

94. A man without literature, music and art is a beast without tail and horns. Author: Bhartrihari Tags: Culture, Art

95. I have spent many days stringing and unstringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung. Author: Rabindranath Tagore Tags: Creativity, Action

## Poets on Music

96. Music oft hath such a charm to make bad good, and good provoke to harm. Author: William Shakespeare (Measure for Measure) Tags: Power, Charm

97. As some to church repair, not for the doctrine, but the music there. Author: Alexander Pope Tags: Church Music, Wit

98. I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear. Author: Walt Whitman Tags: Singing, Poetry

99. Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley Tags: Sadness, Songs

100. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. Author: John Keats Tags: Imagination, Poetry

## Music and Life

101. Music can change the world because it can change people. Author: Attributed to Bono Tags: Change, People

102. Much of the power of our Freedom Movement in the United States has come from this music. Author: Martin Luther King Jr. Tags: Freedom, Civil Rights

103. Jazz speaks for life. Author: Martin Luther King Jr. Tags: Jazz, Life

104. If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week. Author: Charles Darwin Tags: Regret, Habits

105. We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. Author: Friedrich Nietzsche Tags: Dance, Joy

106. There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats. Author: Albert Schweitzer Tags: Comfort, Funny

107. It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself. Author: Attributed to Johann Sebastian Bach Tags: Funny, Instruments

108. Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal. Author: Attributed to Igor Stravinsky Tags: Creativity, Artists