Famous Musician Quotes

• Without music, life is a journey through a desert.

  Pat Conroy

  Music, Journey, Desert

  Pat Conroy (1995). “Beach Music”, Nan A. Talese

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• Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.

  Jimi Hendrix

  Music, Fake People, Peace

  195 Copy quote

• Works of art make rules but rules do not make works of art.

  Claude Debussy

  Art, Musician, Classical Music

  "Companion to Contemporary Musical Thought". Book by John Paynter, 1992.

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  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.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Music, Spiritual

  Albert Einstein (2015). “Bite-Size Einstein: Quotations on Just About Everything from the Greatest Mind of the Twentieth Century”, p.12, St. Martin's Press

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

  Gioachino Rossini

  Music, Giving, Lists

  41 Copy quote

• Music can change the world.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Music, Peace, World

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• Sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, and love belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality.

  Harry Allen Overstreet

  Music, Mean, Love Is

  Harry Allen Overstreet (1927). “About ourselves: psychology for normal people”

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• This whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking, “Is there a meaning to music?” My answer to that would be, “Yes.” And “Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?” My answer to that would be, “No.”

  Aaron Copland

  Music, Jazz, States

  "What to Listen For in Music".

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

  John Philip Sousa

  Music, Feet, Free Jazz

  John Philip Sousa (2010). “Six marches”, p.52, A-R Editions, Inc.

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• Beethoven can write music, thank God, but he can do nothing else on earth.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Music, Writing, Thank God

  Letter to Ferdinand Ries, 20 Dec. 1822

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• The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes", And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be "No."

  Aaron Copland

  Music, Art, Would Be

  What to Listen for in Music (1939) ch. 2

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• Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Jazz And Life, Boundaries

  "Bird: the legend of Charlie Parker". Book by Robert George Reisner, p. 27, 1977.

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• Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Inspiring, Art, Architecture

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Man, there's no boundary line to art!

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Men

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

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• Music gives a soul to the universe.

  Plato

  Music, Wings, Giving

  36 Copy quote

• They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

  Charlie Parker

  Music, Art, Men

  Quoted in Nat Shapiro and Nat Hentoff, Hear Me Talkin' to Ya (1955)

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  Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them.

  Louis Armstrong

  Inspiring, Music, Retirement

  1968 Quoted in the Observer, 21 Apr.

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• All music is folk music. I ain't never heard a horse sing a song.

  Louis Armstrong

  Funny, Music, Song

  Quoted in N.Y. Times, 7 July 1971

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• Music is the universal language of mankind.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Music, Appreciation, Teacher

  1835 OutreMer. Also attributed to Christopher North (1865-1954).

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

  T. S. Eliot

  Inspirational, Music, Fear

  32 Copy quote

• There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Love, Funny, Music

  150 Copy quote

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

  Igor Stravinsky

  Funny, Music, Witty

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Music, Eye, Heart

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• A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Music, Jazz And Life, Doe

  In Peter Yates Twentieth Century Music (1967) pt. 1, ch. 8. Cf. T. S. Eliot 76:8, Lionel Trilling 218:1

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• Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without.

  Confucius

  Music, Wisdom, Art

  70 Copy quote