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

  144 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  109 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  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

  173 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  36 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

  Igor Stravinsky

  Inspiring, Art, Architecture

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

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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)

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

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

  Gioachino Rossini

  Music, Giving, Lists

  41 Copy quote

• 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.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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”

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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)

  20 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  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.

  164 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  90 Copy quote

  Show source

• Music can change the world.

  Ludwig van Beethoven

  Music, Peace, World

  157 Copy quote

• 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".

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Music gives a soul to the universe.

  Plato

  Music, Wings, Giving

  36 Copy quote

• Music is the universal language of mankind.

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Music, Appreciation, Teacher

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

  71 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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.

  Charles Darwin

  Music, Mental Health, Week

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Darwin on Evolution: Words of Wisdom from the Father of Evolution”, p.25, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  40 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow. (Oscar trying to talk his way out of a speeding ticket)

  Oscar Levant

  Music, Trying, Movement

  14 Copy quote

• I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department.

  Eric Clapton

  Beautiful, Weakness, Company

  6 Copy quote

• Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Inspirational, Music, Angel

  Thomas Carlyle (1888). “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays: Collected and Republished (first Time, 1839; Final, 1869)”

  33 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting beauty of monotony.

  Benjamin Britten

  Strength, Music, Beauty

  60 Copy quote

• Music is the art which is most nigh to tears and memories.

  Oscar Wilde

  Music, Art, Memories

  Oscar Wilde (2007). “Epigrams of Oscar Wilde”, p.88, Wordsworth Editions

  14 Copy quote

  Show source