This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Music doth extenuate fears, furies, appeaseth cruelty, abaeth heaviness, and to such as are wakeful it causeth quiet rest; it cures all irksomeness and heaviness of the soul." - Cassiodorus, fully Flavius Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator NULL
"Ye men of gloom and austerity, who paint the face of Infinite Benevolence with an eternal frown, read in the everlasting book, wide open to your view, the lesson it would teach. Its pictures are not in black and somber hues, but bright and glowing tints; its music - save when ye drown it - is not in sights and groans, but songs and cheerful sounds. Listen to the million voices in the summer air, and find one dismal as your own." - Charles Dickens, fully Charles John Huffam Dickens
"Conversation is the music of the mind, an intellectual orchestra, where all the instruments should bear a part, but where none should play together. Each of the performers should have a just appreciation of his own powers, otherwise an unskillful novice who might usurp the first fiddle, would infallibly get into a scrape. To prevent these mistakes, a good master of the band will be very particular in the assortment of the performers; if too dissimilar, there will be no harmony, if too few, there will be no variety; and, if too numerous, there will be no order, for the presumption of one prater, might silence the eloquence of a Burke, or the wit of a Sheridan, as a single kettle-drum would drown the finest solo of a Gionowich or a Jordini." - Charles Caleb Colton
"There is always the possibility of beauty where there is an unsealed human eye; of music where there is an unstopped human ear; and of inspiration where there is a receptive human spirit." - Charles Henry Parkhurst
"Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature." - Chuang Tzu, also spelled Chuang-tsze, Chuang Chou, Zhuangzi, Zhuang Tze, Zhuang Zhou, Chuang Tsu, Chouang-Dsi, Chuang Tse, or Chuangtze
"Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Music expresses the harmony of the universe, while rituals express the order of the universe. Through harmony all things are influenced, and through order all things have a proper place. When rituals and music are well established, we have the Heaven and Earth functioning in perfect order." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Music illustrates the primordial forces of nature, while li reflects the products of creation. Heaven represents the principle of eternal motion, while Earth represents the principle of remaining still, and these two principles of motion and rest permeate life between Heaven and Earth." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Music rises from the human heart when the human heart is touched by the external world." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"The noble person tries to create harmony in the human heart by a rediscovery of human nature, and tries to promote music as a means to the perfection of human culture. When such music prevails and the people’s minds are led toward the right ideas and aspirations, we may see the appearance of a great nation. Character is the backbone of our human nature, and music is the flowing of character... The poem gives expression to our heart, the song gives expression to our voice, and the dance gives expression to our movements. these three arts take their rise from the human soul, and then are given further expressions by means of musical instruments." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL
"Let us not get so busy or live so fast that we can't listen to the music of the meadow or the symphony that glorifies the forest. Some things in the world are far more important than wealth; one of them is the ability to enjoy simple things." - Dale Carnegie, originally spelled Dale Carnegey
"Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea, is poetry; music without the idea is simply music; the idea without the music is prose from its very definiteness." - Edgar Allan Poe
"The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine in Apollo, because the office of medicine is but to tune this curious harp of man’s body and to reduce it to harmony." - Francis Bacon
"Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it. It would not leave them narrow-minded and bigoted." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"In a world of peace and love, music would be the universal language." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau
"Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself." - Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
"Develop an interest in life as you see it - the people, things, literature, music. The world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls, and interesting people. Forget yourself." - Henry Miller, aka Henry Valentine Miller
"Music is the universal language of mankind - poetry their universal pastime and delight." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Music is the Prophet’s art." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed." - Henry Ward Beecher
"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
"Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest into heaven is the beating of a loving heart." - Henry Ward Beecher
"What unnumbered cathedrals has God reared in the forest shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, and haunted evermore by tremulous music!" - Henry Ward Beecher
"Art itself, in all its methods, is the child of religion. The highest and best works in architecture, sculpture and painting, poetry and music, have been born out of the religion of Nature." - James Freeman Clarke
"Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built... Dreams are the seedlings of reality." -
"Music is only art in time in a superficial sense. Viewed more profoundly it is the art of surmounting time in time." - Joachim-Ernst Berendt
"The earth is bathed in music... The drive towards 'synchonicity' and harmony is elemental and universal so it becomes comprehensible that the 'hidden' harmony within ourselves provides us with the strength to find the 'hidden' harmony in the cosmos and universe. The more 'chaotic' and 'atonal' the cluster, the more quickly the harmony develops. Disharmony is a springboard fostering the harmony within ourselves." - Joachim-Ernst Berendt
"We see that music does not merely take place within time. It also exalts and surmounts time. It is not just that the past and present merge. The future is also involved to the extent that within the harmonious progression of music the note sounding 'now' anticipates the future note in which it will be resolved The not to come is, as it were, contained in the present note, which could not otherwise 'summon' it. Anyone musical knows that it is hardly possible to break off certain cadences before the final note. The final note is 'there' whether it is played or not. It may sound out later - or not at all - but, viewed in a higher sense, it was to be heard much earlier. Time only completes what became necessary outside of time. It merely makes manifest what would otherwise have remained hidden." - Joachim-Ernst Berendt
"When we separate music from life we get art." - John Cage, fully John Milton Cage, Jr.
"It is better to make a piece of music than to perform one, better to perform one than to listen to one, better to listen to one than to misuse it as a means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of “culture.”" - John Cage, fully John Milton Cage, Jr.
"Music is edifying, for from time to time, it sets the soul in operation." - John Cage, fully John Milton Cage, Jr.
"Let no one imagine that in owning a recording he has the music. The very practice of music is a celebration that we own nothing." - John Cage, fully John Milton Cage, Jr.
"My favorite piece of music is the one we hear all the time if we are quiet." - John Cage, fully John Milton Cage, Jr.
"What passion cannot music raise and quell?" - John Dryden
"There's no music in "rest," but there's the making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the life melody, always talking of perseverance and courage and fortitude; but patience is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude, and the rarest, too." - John Ruskin
"The best, most beautiful, and most perfect way that we have of expressing a sweet concord of mind to each other is by music." - Jonathan Edwards
"Music is the only sensual gratification which mankind may; indulge in to excess without injury to their moral or religious feelings." - Joseph Addison
"Music religious heat inspires, it wakes the soul and lifts it high, and wings it with sublime desires, and fits it to bespeak the Deity." - Joseph Addison
"Music when thus applied raises in the mind of the hearer great conceptions. It strengthens devotion, and advances praise into rapture." - Joseph Addison
"Music is the greatest good that mortals know, and all of heaven we have below." - Joseph Addison
"Who would have guessed that, thanks to all the ingenious tie-ins between advertising, entertainment, the popular arts, and the great corporations, the time would come when one of the most obvious aspects of the condition of the average American man is simply this: Most of the news he hears, most of the music he listens to, and most of the drama he witnesses - in fact almost all the intellectual or artistic experience he ever has - is provided by medicine shows." - Joseph Wood Krutch
"Everything in life is good; even gold, for it teaches a lesson. Money is like a stringed instrument; he who does not know how to use it properly will hear only discordant music. Money is like love; it kills slowly and painfully the one who withholds it, and it enlivens the other who turns it upon his fellow man." - Kahlil Gibran
"Where there is no anguish in the heart there will be no great music on the lips." - Karl Barth
"Music is a form of spiritual carbon dating." - Lance Morrow
"Einstein said that “the most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.” then why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus apparently depriving it of its mystery?" - Leonard Bernstein
"Music can name the unnamable, and communicate the unknowable." - Leonard Bernstein