Inspirational Music Quotes & Sayings

A collection of inspirational sayings and quotes about music by music lovers, musicians, philosophers and other famous people – reflections on music, the divine and spiritual aspects of music which express emotions, uplift and inspire, touch the heart & heal and soothe the soul.

 

” Music can change the world
because it can change people.”
~ Bono, U2~

“Music is a higher revelation
than all wisdom and philosphy.
Music is the electrical soil
in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents.”
~ Ludwig van Beethoven ~

“… everyone was using tiny brushes and doing watercolors,
while Jimi Hendrix was painting galactic scenes in Cinemascope.
We are working in a field of mystical resonance, sound and vibration…
that’s what makes people cry, laugh
and feel their hair stand up … ”
~ Carlos Santana ~

“Music does bring people together.
It allows us to experience the same emotions.
People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit.
No matter what language we speak, what color we are,
the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith,
music proves: We are the same.”
~ John Denver ~

“A person does not hear sound only through the ears;
he hears sound through every pore of his body.
It permeates the entire being,
and according to its particular influence either slows
or quickens the rhythm of the blood circulation;
it either wakens or soothes the nervous system.
It arouses a person to greater passions
or it calms him by bringing him peace.
According to the sound and its influence
a certain effect is produced.
Sound becomes visible in the form of radiance.
This shows that the same energy which goes into the form of sound
before being visible is absorbed by the physical body.
In that way the physical body recuperates
and becomes charged with new magnetism.”
~ from ‘Mysticism of Sound’ by Hazrat Inayat Khan ~

“I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights;
and you have yours.
But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, 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.”
~ H. A. Overstreet (1894-1985) ~

“Music washes away from the soul
the dust of everyday life.”
~ Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882) ~

“Do you know that our soul
is composed of harmony?”
~ Leonardo DaVinci ~

“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 ~

“There is no feeling,
except the extremes of fear and grief,
that does not find relief in music.”
~ George Eliot (1819-80) ~

Just as certain selections of music
will nourish the physical body and your emotional layer,
so other musical works will bring greater health to your mind.”
~ from ‘The Healing Energies of Music’ by Hal A. Lingerman ~

“Music gives a soul to the universe,
wings to the mind,
flight to the imagination,
and life to everything.”
~ Plato ~

” Music is well said to be the speech of angels;
in fact, nothing among the utterances allowed to man
is felt to be so divine.
It brings us near to the infinite.”
~ Thomas Carlyle (1795 – 1881) ~

The truest expression of a people
is in its dance and music.
~ Agnes de Mile (1905-93) ~

” Music is the art
which is most nigh to tears and memory.
~ Oscar Wilde ~

There’s music in the sighing of a reed;
There’s music in the gushing of a rill;
There’s music in all things, if men had ears:
Their earth is but an echo of the spheres.
~ Lord (George Gordon Noel) Byron
English poet, 1788 – 1824 ~

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds:
And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk or grave;
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet!
~ William Cowper (1731 – 1768) ~

Music, the greatest good that mortals know,
And all of heaven we have below.
Music can noble hints impart,
Engender fury, kindle love;
40 With unsuspected eloquence can move,
And manage all the man with secret art.
When Orpheus strikes the trembling lyre
The streams stand still, the stones admire;
The listening savages advance,
The world and lamb around him trip
The bears in aukward measures leap,
And tigers mingle in the dance
The moving woods attended as he played
And Rhodope was left without a shade.
~ Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
from “A Song For St. Cecilia’s Day ~

A few can touch the magic string,
And noisy Fame is proud to win them;
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them!
~ Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809–1894)) from ‘The Voiceless’ 1858 ~

Music cleanses the understanding;
inspires it, and lifts it into a realm
which it would not reach if it were left to itself.
~ Henry Ward Beecher (1813 – 1887)
American Congregational clergyman, religious writer and reformer ~

Music was my refuge.
I could crawl into the space between the notes
and curl my back to loneliness.
~ Maya Angelou ~

“After silence,
that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible
is music.”
~ Aldous Huxley ~

Its language is a language which the soul
alone understands,
but which the soul can never translate.
~ Arnold Bennett (1867 – 1931) ~

Music expresses that which cannot be said
and on which it is impossible to be silent.
~Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) ~