Music Quotes

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“The horn, the horn, the lusty horn Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.”

“I am never merry when I hear sweet music.”

“Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands. Curtsied when you have and kissed The wild waves whist, Foot is featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burden bear. Ariel's song, scene II, Act I”

“In sweet music is such art: killing care and grief of heart fall asleep, or hearing, die.”

“How soar sweet music is, when time is broke, and no proportion kept!”

“Though music oft hath such a charm to make bad good, and good provoke to harm.”

“I heard a bird so sing, Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.”

“When griping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind opresses, then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress.”

“Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing; To his music, plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die.”

“It is the doctrine of the popular music-masters, that whoever can speak can sing. So, probably, every man is eloquent once in his life. Our temperaments differ in capacity of heat, or”

“If music be the food of love, play on.”

“I think sometimes could I only have music on my own terms, could I live in a great city, and know where I could go whenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves, that were a bath and a medicine.”

“I sat upon a promontory,And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,That the rude sea grew civil at her song;And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,To hear the sea-maid's music.”

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

“In the house of lovers, the music never stops, the walls are made of songs & the floor dances”

“Because I cannot sleep I make music at night.”

“Music, moody food Of us that trade in love.”

“Music causes us to think eloquently.”

“Music can minister to minds diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with its sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.”

“The man who disparages music as a luxury and non-essential is doing the nation an injury. Music now, more than ever before, is a national need.”

“If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world it is to your country [Italy] its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.”

“Great thoughts ensure musical expression.”

“Music says nothing to the reason: it is a kind of closely structured nonsense.”

“Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze by the sweet power of music.”