Top 50 Music Quotations

Discover the phenomenonal complexity of music and reflect on the way it can positively influence your life with this sound collection of riveting quotes...

  • "Music, the greatest good that mortals know, And all of heaven we have below."
    -- Joseph Addison

  • "Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness."
    --Maya Angelou

  • "Music is either good or bad, and it's got to be learned. You got to have balance."
    -- Louis Armstrong

  • "Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life."
    -- Berthold Auerbach

  • "The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."
    --Johann Sebastian Bach

  • "Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life."
    -- Ludwig van Beethoven

  • "Music - The one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend."
    -- Ludwig van Beethoven

  • "Music can change the world. "
    -- Ludwig Van Beethoven

  • "Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable."
    -- Leonard Bernstein

  • "Music has to breathe and sweat. You have to play it live. "
    -- James Brown

  • "Music is well said to be the speech of angels."
    -- Thomas Carlyle

  • "All music comes from God."
    -- Johnny Cash

  • "If you learn music, you'll learn most all there is to know. "
    -- Edgar Cayce

  • "Music is nothing separate from me. It is me... You'd have to remove the music surgically. "
    -- Ray Charles

  • "Good music is good no matter what kind of music it is. "
    -- Miles Davis

  • "There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music."
    -- George Eliot

  • "You are the music while the music lasts."
    --T. S. Eliot

  • "We need magic, and bliss, and power, myth, and celebration and religion in our lives, and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it. "
    -- Jerry Garcia

  • "Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife."
    -- Kahlil Gibran

  • "When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had and never will have."
    -- Edgar Watson Howe

  • "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossile to be silent."
    -- Victor Hugo

  • "The history of a people is found in its songs."
    -- George Jellinek

  • "Music is the vernacular of the human soul."
    -- Geoffrey Latham

  • "It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; the music is nothing if the audience is deaf."
    -- Walter J. Lippmann

  • "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."
    -- Hal A. Lingerman

  • "Music is the harmonious voice of creation; an echo of the invisible world."
    -- Giuseppe Mazzini

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

  • "I started making music because I could."
    -- Alanis Morissette

  • "Music helps you find the truths you must bring into the rest of your life. "
    -- Alanis Morissette

  • "Music is spiritual. The music business is not. "
    -- Van Morrison

  • "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."
    -- Theodore Mungers

  • "Without music life would be a mistake."
    -- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

  • "In music the passions enjoy themselves."
    -- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

  • "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."
    -- Charlie Parker

  • "Music should be something that makes you gotta move, inside or outside. "
    -- Elvis Presley

  • "It's the music that kept us all intact, kept us from going crazy. "
    -- Lou Reed

  • "The music business was not safe, but it was FUN. It was like falling in love with a woman you know is bad for you, but you love every minute with her, anyway."
    -- Lionel Richie

  • "Music should never be harmless."
    -- Robbie Robertson

  • "Give me a laundry list and I'll set it to music."
    -- Gioacchino Antonio Rossini

  • "All music is important if it comes from the heart. "
    -- Carlos Santana

  • "Music is the key to the female heart."
    -- Johann G. Seume

  • "The best music... is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with. "
    -- Bruce Springsteen

  • "All I try to do is write music that feels meaningful to me, that has commitment and passion behind it."
    -- Bruce Springsteen

  • "In music one must think with the heart and feel with the brain."
    --George Szell

  • "When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest."
    -- Henry David Thoreau

  • "For heights and depths no words can reach, music is the soul's own speech."
    --Unknown

  • "Most of us go to our grave with our music still inside of us."
    --Unknown

  • "I believe in the power of music. To me, it isn't just a fad. This is a positive thing."
    -- Eddie Vedder

  • "Music at its essence is what gives us memories. "
    -- Stevie Wonder

  • "There's a basic rule which runs through all kinds of music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don't know what it is. But I've got it."
    -- Ron Wood

    Resource Box - © Danielle Hollister (2004) is the Publisher of BellaOnline Quotations Zine - A free newsletter for quote lovers featuring more than 10,000 quotations in dozens of categories like - love, friendship, children, inspiration, success, wisdom, family, life, and many more. Read it online at - http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art8364.a sp

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    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left, waves to media as she arrives at Palam technical airport in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008. Rice arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday in Washington's effort to ease tensions in the region after a three-day terrorist attack that left 171 people dead in Mumbai. U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford, center, and his wife Jeannie Mulford are also seen in the picture. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)AP - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday as part of a U.S. effort to ease tensions in the region after a three-day terrorist attack killed 171 people in India's financial capital.



    Incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss reacts as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin addresses the crowd during a rally in Duluth, Georgia December 1, 2008. (Tami Chappell/Reuters)AP - Relieved Republicans celebrated a resounding win in Georgia's hard-fought U.S. Senate runoff, a victory that denied Democrats a filibuster-proof majority and cemented the state's reputation as a GOP bastion.



    Defense Secretary Robert Gates holds a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008. Gates said that U.S. and British citizens were the targets of the violent siege in Mumbai, although most of those killed in the city, the nation's financial capital, were Indians. He also said Tuesday that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, had gone to the region to meet with officials.  (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)AP - Defense Secretary Robert Gates signaled a willingness Tuesday to forge ahead with two key priorities for the incoming Obama administration: accelerating the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention center.



    Trader David O'Day works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)AP - The government must toughen its monitoring of the $700 billion financial bailout to ensure that banking institutions limit their top executives' pay and comply with other restrictions, federal auditors said Tuesday in the first comprehensive review of the rescue package.



    In this handout photo provided by the Tracy Police Department, the booking mug for Michael Schumacher, 34, is shown. Schumacher, and wife Kelly Layne Lau, 30, were arrested late Monday, charged with torture and other counts after a bruised, terrified 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, claiming he had just fled his captors, authorities said Tuesday. (AP Photo/Tracy Police Department)AP - A Girl Scout leader and her husband were arrested after an emaciated, terrified and nearly naked 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, saying he had just fled his captors, authorities said Tuesday.



    Chart compares the percentage of military service members getting divorced this year and last; 1 c x 2 7/8 in; 46.5 mm x 73.025 mmAP - The divorce rate among soldiers and Marines increased last year as military marriages suffered continuing stress from America's two ongoing wars. There were an estimated 10,200 failed marriages in the active duty Army and 3,077 among Marines, according to figures obtained by The Associated Press for the budget year ended Sept. 30.



    AP - An independent report on American higher education flunks all but one state when it comes to affordability — an embarrassing verdict that is unlikely to improve as the economy contracts.

    Folk performer Odetta sings at the New Orleans Jazz Festival in this 1978 file photo. Odetta, the folk singer with the powerful voice who moved audiences and influenced fellow musicians for a half-century, died Tuesday Dec. 2, 2008. She was 77. (AP Photo, FILE)AP - Odetta, the folk singer with the powerful voice who moved audiences and influenced fellow musicians for a half-century, has died. She was 77.



    Oil traders gesture as they work in the oil futures pit at the New York Mercantile Exchange in New York, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008. Oil prices dipped again Tuesday and gas prices hit their lowest levels since January 2005 with the United States officially in a recession.  (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)AP - Asian stock markets mostly rose Wednesday after a rebound on Wall Street, but pervasive concerns about the dismal outlook for the world economy limited gains.



    Indiana Pacers forward Danny Granger, left, puts up a shot in front of Los Angeles Lakers forward Vladimir Radmanovic (10), of Serbia, during the fourth quarter of an NBA basketball game in Indianapolis, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2008. The Pacers won 118-117. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)AP - Danny Granger scored 32 points and led Indiana back from a 15-point fourth-quarter deficit, and Troy Murphy tipped in a missed shot at the buzzer to complete an improbable 118-117 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.



    U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, left, waves to media as she arrives at Palam technical airport in New Delhi, India, Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2008. Rice arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday in Washington's effort to ease tensions in the region after a three-day terrorist attack that left 171 people dead in Mumbai. U.S. Ambassador to India David Mulford, center, and his wife Jeannie Mulford are also seen in the picture. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)Reuters - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday as part of urgent U.S. efforts to ease tension between India and Pakistan that has surged over the Mumbai attacks.



    A foreign currency dealer stands in front of a screen displaying the exchange rates between the U.S. dollar and the Korean won at the Korea Exchange Bank in Seoul November 24, 2008. (Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters)Reuters - South Korea moved on Wednesday to help local banks through a cash crunch gripping the global financial system as central banks around the world were expected to cut interest rates again to support their fast flagging economies.



    Reuters - U.S. forces in Iraq captured two suspected members of an Iranian-backed network and killed a third Wednesday, part of U.S. efforts to target a group it says has attacked Iraqi citizens and foreign troops.

    New trucks are displayed for sale at a Ford dealership in Encinitas, California in this November 11, 2008 file photo. (Mike Blake/Reuters)Reuters - A top lawmaker predicted Washington would approve a bailout for U.S. automakers after they submitted survival plans, and General Motors Corp and Chrysler LLC said they needed an immediate infusion of cash to avoid failures.



    President-elect Barack Obama meets with governors during a bipartisan meeting with members of the National Governors Association at Congress Hall in Independence Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania December 2, 2008. (Jeff Haynes/Reuters)Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama moved swiftly toward wrapping up his cabinet appointments on Wednesday with the selection of rival-turned-supporter Bill Richardson as secretary of commerce.



    Incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss (C) smiles after hugging his grandson John Baker and his mother Emma Chambliss after he had been told he was ahead in the run-off at his election night party in Atlanta, Georgia December 2, 2008. Chambliss won a run-off election in Georgia on Tuesday, CNN said, denying Democrats the chance for a 60-seat 'super majority' in the Senate that would have enabled them to pass legislation virtually at will. (Tami Chappell/Reuters)Reuters - Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss easily won a run-off election in Georgia on Tuesday, denying Democrats the chance for a 60-seat "super majority" in the Senate that would have enabled them to pass legislation virtually at will.



    A station attendant fills up a bus at a gas station in Shanghai November 25, 2008. (Aly Song/Reuters)Reuters - Oil rose toward $48 a barrel on Wednesday, recovering from a tumble of more than $100 off July peaks, but the upside could be limited, with further signs of weakening oil demand expected in upcoming weekly U.S. oil data.



    Senator Hillary Clinton along with daughter Chelsea (L) and husband former President Bill Clinton (C) speaks to supporters at her North Carolina and Indiana primary election night rally in Indianapolis, Indiana, May 6, 2008. (John Gress/Reuters)Reuters - New York Gov. David Paterson has famous names to choose from in picking a replacement for Sen. Hillary Clinton, including a Kennedy, a Cuomo and even another Clinton, as in the former president of the United States.



    An anti-government protester waits for transport as demonstrators prepare to leave the Suvarnabhumi international airport in Bangkok on December 3. Hundreds of anti-government protesters have packed up and left Bangkok's airports after a crippling siege, as authorities assured angry tourists that flights would resume within 24 hours.(AFP/Hoang Dinh Nam)AFP - Hundreds of anti-government protesters packed up and left Bangkok's airports on Wednesday after a crippling siege, as authorities assured angry tourists that flights would resume within 24 hours.



    Indians rest on the sea front promenade outside the Oberoi Trident hotel in Mumbai. Pakistan offered Tuesday to work hand-in-hand with India to track down those responsible for the Mumbai attacks but declined to respond immediately to a demand that it hand over 20 terrorist suspects.(AFP/Indranil Mukherjee)AFP - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in New Delhi Wednesday to try and ease India-Pakistan tensions over the Mumbai attacks, as US intelligence blamed a Pakistan-based militant group.




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