Jacques Attali Quotes

• In noise can be read the codes of life, the relations among men. Clamour, Melody, Dissonance, Harmony; when it is fashioned by man with specific tools, when it invades man’s time, when it becomes sound, noise is the source of the purpose and power, of the dream – Music.

  Jacques Attali

  Dream, Men, Sound

  Jacques Attali (1985). “Noise: The Political Economy of Music”, p.6, Manchester University Press

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• Now we must learn to judge a society by its sounds.

  Jacques Attali

  Inspiration, Judging, Sound

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• Change is inscribed in noise faster than it transforms society.

  Jacques Attali

  Noise, Faster

  Jacques Attali (1985). “Noise: The Political Economy of Music”, p.5, Manchester University Press

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• For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible.

  Jacques Attali

  Twenties, Looks, World

  Jacques Attali (1985). “Noise: The Political Economy of Music”, p.3, Manchester University Press

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• What is noise to the old order is harmony to the new.

  Jacques Attali

  Order, Noise, Harmony

  Jacques Attali (1985). “Noise: The Political Economy of Music”, p.35, Manchester University Press

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• What is called music today is all too often only a disguise for the monologue of power. However, and this is the supreme irony of it all, never before have musicians tried so hard to communicate with their audience, and never before has that communication been so deceiving. Music now seems hardly more than a somewhat clumsy excuse for the self-glorification of musicians and the growth of a new industrial sector.

  Jacques Attali

  Communication, Self, Growth

  "Classic Essays on Twentieth-Century Music". Book by Richard Kostelanetz, Joseph Darby, 1996.

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• For twenty-five centuries, Western knowledge has tried to look upon the world. It has failed to understand that the world is not for the beholding. It is for hearing. It is not legible, but audible. Our science has always desired to monitor, measure, abstract, and castrate meaning, forgetting that life is full of noise and that death alone is silent: work noise, noise of man, and noise of beast. Noise bought, sold, or prohibited. Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise.

  Jacques Attali

  Men, Twenties, Essentials

  Jacques Attali (1985). “Noise: The Political Economy of Music”, p.3, Manchester University Press

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• Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.

  Jacques Attali

  Government, Euphemism, Governance

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• The first path a human being ever travels is the path that leads out of the maternal womb. Every human being's first labyrinth is that of a woman.

  Jacques Attali

  Labyrinth, Path, Firsts

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• Man's tragedy is that when he can do something, in the end he will always do it

  Jacques Attali

  Men, Tragedy, Ends

  Jacques Attali (2009). “A Brief History of the Future: A Brave and Controversial Look at the Twenty-first Century”, Arcade Publishing

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• Today, music heralds... the establishment of a society of repetition in which nothing will happen anymore.

  Jacques Attali

  Music, Today, Establishment

  Jacques Attali (1985). “Noise: The Political Economy of Music”, p.5, Manchester University Press

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