Famous Musician Quotes:

Without music, life is a journey through a desert.

- Pat Conroy

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

topic: Music, Journey, Desert, Music Is Life, Inspirational Music

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

- Jimi Hendrix

topic: Music, Fake People, Peace, Music Is Life, Blues Music

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

- Claude Debussy

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

topic: Art, Musician, Classical Music, Classical Composers, Famous Musician

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

topic: Inspirational, Music, Spiritual, Musical Life, Music Is Life

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

- Gioachino Rossini

topic: Music, Giving, Lists, Music Teacher, Composing Music

Music can change the world.

- Ludwig van Beethoven

topic: Music, Peace, World, Music Life, Music And Life

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

topic: Mean, Love Is, Sorrow, Music Life, Music Is Life

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

source: "What to Listen For in Music".

topic: Music, Jazz, States, Jazz Musician, Literature And Music

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

- John Philip Sousa

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

topic: Music, Feet, Long, Jazz Musician, Musical Life

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

- Ludwig van Beethoven

source: Letter to Ferdinand Ries, 20 Dec. 1822

topic: Music, Writing, Thank God, Writing Music, Composing Music

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

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

topic: Music, Would Be, Asking, Jazz Musician, Literature And Music

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

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

topic: Music, Art, Men, Jazz And Blues, Jazz And Life

Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal.

- Igor Stravinsky

topic: Inspiring, Art, Architecture, Great Artist, Classical Composers

Music gives a soul to the universe.

- Plato

topic: Music, Wings, Giving, Jazz And Life, Music Life

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

- Louis Armstrong

source: 1968 Quoted in the Observer, 21 Apr.

topic: Inspiring, Music, Retirement, Jazz Musician, Inspirational Retirement

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

- Louis Armstrong

topic: Funny, Music, Song, Modern Music, Folk Music

Music is the universal language of mankind.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

topic: Music, Teacher, Appreciation, Music Life, Music Is Life

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

- T. S. Eliot

topic: Inspirational, Music, Fear, Music Life, Music Is Life

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

- Albert Schweitzer

topic: Love, Funny, Music, Music Life, Inspirational Animal

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

- Igor Stravinsky

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

topic: Funny, Music, Witty, Composing Music, Classic Music

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

- Ludwig van Beethoven

topic: Music, Eye, Heart, Music Life, Music And Life

A good composer does not imitate; he steals.

- Igor Stravinsky

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

topic: Music, Doe, Stealing, Jazz And Life, Composing Music

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

- Confucius

topic: Music, Wisdom, Art, Music Life, Music Therapy

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

topic: Trying, Movement, Oscars, Speeding Tickets, Speeding

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

source: Benjamin Britten (2011). “Letters from a Life Vol 1: 1923-39: Selected Letters and Diaries of Benjamin Britten”, Faber & Faber

topic: Strength, Music, Beauty, Music Life, Musical Life

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.

- Thomas Carlyle

topic: Inspirational, Angel, Musical, Jazz And Life, Musical Life

I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department. And I suppose because I am fairly well off and a famous musician, I'm up for grabs. And that makes me an eligible bachelor in the press.

- Eric Clapton

topic: Beautiful, Weakness, Musician, Famous Musician

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

- Oscar Wilde

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

topic: Music, Art, Memories, Music Is Life, Music And Life

There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another.

- Frank Zappa

topic: Love, Music, Marriage, Music Theory, Famous Musician

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

topic: Music, Mental Health, Week, Music Life, World Music

Where words leave off, music begins.

- Heinrich Heine

topic: Music, Inspirational Music, Music And Life, Music Life, Music Speaks

Music can change the world because it can change people.

- Bono

topic: Inspirational, Change, Music, Music And Life, Inspirational Music

I don't want you to play me a riff that's going to impress Joe Satriani; give me a riff that makes a kid want to go out and buy a guitar and learn to play.

- Ozzy Osbourne

topic: Kids, Play, Guitar, Famous Musician, Guitar Music

I've outdone anyone you can name - Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Strauss. Irving Berlin, he wrote 1,001 tunes. I wrote 5,500.

- James Brown

topic: Music, Names, Tunes, Writing Music, Music Writing

Music must never offend the ear, but must please the listener, or, in other words, must never cease to be music.

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

topic: Music, Ears, Please, Famous Musician

Your talking to someone who really understands rock music.

- Tipper Gore

topic: Music, Rocks, Talking, Talking To Someone, Famous Musician

That's what music is: entertainment. The more you put yourself into it, the more of you comes out in it.

- Kurt Cobain

topic: Entertainment, Music Is, Famous Musician

No matter what culture you're from, everyone loves music.

- Billy Joel

source: Interview with Anthony DeCurtis, www.rollingstone.com. November 06, 1986.

topic: Music, Healing, Matter, Music Life, Love Heals

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.

- Victor Hugo

topic: Music, Wisdom, Silence, Jazz And Life, Music Life

I think music in itself is healing. It's an explosive expression of humanity. It's something we are all touched by. No matter what culture we're from, everyone loves music.

- Billy Joel

source: FaceBook post by Billy Joel from Aug 19, 2013

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Music, Music Life, Soul Healing

A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.

- Leopold Stokowski

source: Leopold Stokowski's address to an audience at Carnegie Hall, as quoted in The New York Times, May 11, 1967.

topic: Music, Silence, Canvas, Jazz And Life, Music Life

If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die.

- William Shakespeare

topic: Food, Unrequited Love, Romantic Love, Jazz And Life, Music Life

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

- Ludwig van Beethoven

source: Ludwig Van Beethoven, John Trie (2017). “Ludwig Van Beethoven for Classical Guitar - Tablature: Arranged for Guitar by John Trie”, p.36, BoD - Books on Demand

topic: Music, Wisdom, Philosophy, Music Life, Musical Life

Country music is three chords and the truth.

- Harlan Howard

source: "Country Scribe Harlan Howard Dies" by Andrew Dansby, www.rollingstone.com. March 5, 2002.

topic: Music, Country, Inspiration, Words And Music, Funny Music

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.

- Johann Sebastian Bach

topic: Music, Play, Keys, Jazz Musician, Ignorance Is Bliss