Famous Musical Quotes

  • Music is love in search of a word. ~Sidney Lanier

  • Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. ~Berthold Auerbach
  • Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding, sings. ~Ed Gardner
  • The fact that the public in general does not understand and appreciate the best things is the reason people like me get famous. ~Brahms
  • There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem. ~George Bernard Shaw
  • Without music life would be a mistake. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
  • Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes. ~Alfred Lord Tennyson
  • Music expresses that which cannot be said and that which cannot remain silent. ~Victor Hugo
  • If music be the food of love; play on. ~William Shakespeare
  • Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue. ~Plato
  • Classical music is the kind that we keep hoping will turn into a tune. ~Kin Hubbard
  • Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without. ~Confucius


  • Silence is the fabric upon which the notes are woven. ~Lawrence Duncan

  • The pause is as important as the note. ~Truman Fisher
  • Music can noble hints impart, Engender fury, kindle love, With unsuspected eloquence can move, And manage all the man with secret art. ~Joseph Addison
  • A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges. ~Benny Green
  • The joy of music should never be interrupted by a commercial. ~Leonard Bernstein
  • The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scots as a joke, but the Scots haven't got the joke yet. ~Oliver Herford


  • Music is the universal language of mankind. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow