47 Music Quotes That Celebrate the Magic of Sound and Rhythm

No matter what genre you prefer, music is part of our lives. Without it, everything would be dull and pointless. Songs convey emotion; they tell stories. Time stops when we’re listening to good music, our hearts open and we let ourselves get carried away. The following music quotes go a long way to capture that sentiment.

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Music is an old-time healer, and a friend that never lets us down. It brings us together, and lifts us up. If we want to vent our feelings, music is often the best therapy.

Since ancient times, people have sung to celebrate, motivate, and even mourn. So you see, there’s no inappropriate time to listen to music, even if we’re not necessarily celebrating something.

The following quotes are from famous musicians, composers and non-musicians alike -- and they all share similar viewpoints. After all, you don’t have to be a professional to appreciate the sound of an instrument or a beautiful voice.

Quotes That Capture the Power of Music

"Where words fail, music speaks." - Hans Christian Andersen

“Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of our first date. It can lift us out of depression when nothing else can. It can get us dancing to its beat. But the power of music goes much, much further. Indeed, music occupies more areas of our brain than language does - humans are a musical species.” - Oliver Sacks

"I don’t sing because I’m happy; I’m happy because I sing." - William James

"Music, when soft voices die / Vibrates in the memory." - Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Where the words leave off, the music begins." - Heinrich Heine

"Music is like a dream. One that I cannot hear." - Ludwig van Beethoven

“Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.” - Hans Christian Andersen

"Some days there won’t be a song in your heart. Sing anyway." - Emory Austin

"Music is a proud, temperamental mistress. Give her the time and attention she deserves and she is yours. Slight her and there will come a day when you will call and she will not answer." - Patrick Roth Fuss

"One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain." - Bob Marley

"Life seems to go on without effort when I am filled with music." - George Eliot

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley

"Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." - Victor Hugo

“A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence.” - Leopold Stokowski

"I think music in itself is healing. It is 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

"Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid." - Frank Zappa

"My idea is that there is music in the air, music all around us; the world is full of it, and you simply take as much as you require." - Edward Elgar

"You can cage the singer but not the song." - Harry Belafonte

"Music brings a warm glow to my vision, thawing mind and muscle from their endless wintering." - Haruki Murakami

"People ask me how I make music. I tell them I just step into it. It's like stepping into a river and joining the flow. Every moment in in the river has its song." - Michael Jackson

"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before." - Leonard Bernstein

"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I'm related to the earliest of times, and to the latest." - Henry David Thoreau

"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music AND I see my life in terms of music." - Albert Einstein

"Without music, life would be a mistake." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"The only truth is music." - Jack Kerouac

"Music is the shorthand of emotion." - Leo Tolstoy

"Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones." - Keith Richards

"You have to, take a deep breath. and allow the music to flow through you. Revel in it, allow yourself to awe. When you play allow the music to break your heart with its beauty." - Kelly White

“Jazz is not just music, it’s a way of life, it’s a way of being, a way of thinking.” - Nina Simone

"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

"The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable." - W.H. Auden

"Music should be your escape." - Missy Elliott

"I’ve found that no matter what life throws at me, music softens the blow." - Bryce W. Anderson

"Music drives you. It wakes you up, it gets you pumping. And, at the end of the day, the correct tune will chill you down." - Dimebag Darrell

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

"Music is the universal language of mankind." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“A great song should lift your heart, warm the soul and make you feel good.” - Colbie Caillat

"I see music as fluid architecture." - Joni Mitchell

"Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens." - Maria von Trapp

"There is nothing more to be said or to be done tonight, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellow men." - Arthur Conan Doyle

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

"If music is a place, then jazz is the City, Folk is the wilderness, Rock is the Road, Classical is a temple." - Vera Nazarian

"Music is the divine way to tell beautiful, poetic things to the heart." - Pablo Casals

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

"Remember the first time you went to a show and saw your favorite band. You wore their shirt, and sang every word. You didn't know anything about scene politics, haircuts, or what was cool. All you knew was that this music made you feel different from anyone you shared a locker with. Someone finally understood you. This is what music is about." - Gerard Way

"Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music." - Sergei Rachmaninoff

"Music can change the world because it can change people." - Bono

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