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 (1900 - 1990)
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.
Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963), "Music at Night", 1931
[T]here's no bad day that can't be overcome by listening to a barbershop quartet; this is just truth, plain and simple.
Chuck Sigars, The World According to Chuck weblog, September 30, 2003
An intellectual snob2 is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture3 and not think of The Lone4 Ranger5.
Dan Rather (1931 - )
But then there's a moment like tonight, a profound and transcendent experience, the feeling as if a door has opened, and it's all because of that instrument, that incredible, magical instrument.
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Mite6 Makes Right, 1994
Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings.
Ed Gardner
Wagner's music is better than it sounds.
Edgar Wilson Nye (1850 - 1896), quoted in Mark Twain's Autobiography7, 1924
My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.
Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964)
I don't know anything about music. In my line you don't have to.
Elvis Presley (1935 - 1977)
Only sick music makes money today.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 - 1900), Der Fall Wagner, Section 5
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)
Hell is full of musical amateurs.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)
Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Man and Superman (1903) act 3
I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
George Eliot (1819 - 1880)
There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
George Eliot (1819 - 1880), The Mill on the Floss, 1860
Music is essentially8 useless, as life is.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), Life of Reason (1905) vol. 4, ch. 4
Music is essentially useless, as life is: but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions.
George Santayana (1863 - 1952), Life of Reason (1905) vol. 4, ch. 4
Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Groucho Marx (1890 - 1977)
Among all men on the earth bards9 have a share of honor and reverence10, because the muse11 has taught them songs and loves the race of bards.
Homer (800 BC - 700 BC), The Odyssey12
My music is best understood by children and animals.
Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971), In Observer 8 Oct. 1961
Ah, music. A magic beyond all we do here!
J. K. Rowling, Harry13 Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, 1997
I think everyone should have a Beatles phase in their life. I think it's part of growing up in the Western world.
Jadelr and Cristina Cordova, Chasing Windmills, 07-24-06
Music like religion, unconditionally14 brings in its train all the moral virtues15 to the heart it enters, even though that heart is not in the least worthy16.
Jean Baptiste Montegut
I hate music, especially when it's played.
Jimmy Durante (1893 - 1980)
If you develop an ear for sounds that are musical it is like developing an ego17. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off from a good deal of experience.
John Cage (1912 - 1992)
Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic18 thing.
John Erskine (1879 - 1951)
Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune19.
Kin1 Hubbard (1868 - 1930)
Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners, she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.
Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)
My heart, which is so full to overflowing20, has often been solaced21 and refreshed by music when sick and weary.
Martin Luther (1483 - 1546)
Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809 - 1894)
