Music Quotes

Here is a list of top music quotes in the same place for you to read and enjoy. Whether you’re looking for inspiration regarding music or quotes from famous artists regarding music, this list has you covered! Music has long been an art form that manages to touch us emotionally in a deep way, to help us express our emotions and to express oneself in a holistic way. Most of these quotes are from famous composers, singers and artists. Feel free to vote up your own favourite music quote that you like the most, to give it a better chance to rank higher on this list. We recommend starting to browse the quotes from the top of the list, as the list is ranked by community votes with the most popular music quotes on the top of the list.

  1. 1
    Albert Einstein

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

  2. 2
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    “Without music, life would be a mistake.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

  3. 3
    Bob Marley

    “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.” ― Bob Marley

  4. 4
    Victor Hugo

    “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent” ― Victor hugo

  5. 5
    Friedrich Nietzsche

    “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

  6. 6
    William Shakespeare

    “This above all: to thine own self be true, 
    And it must follow, as the night the day, 
    Thou canst not then be false to any man.” ― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

  7. 7
    Paul McCartney

    “And, in the end
    The love you take
    is equal to the love you make.” ― Paul McCartney, The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics

  8. 8
    William Shakespeare

    “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, Twelfth Night

  9. 9
    Taylor Swift

    “People haven’t always been there for me but music always has.” ― Taylor Swift

  10. 10
    Bob Marley

    “None but ourselves can free our minds.” ― Bob Marley

  11. 11
    Maya Angelou

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

  12. 12
    John Green

    “Some people have lives; some people have music.” ― John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson

  13. 13
    Frank Zappa

    “Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.” ― Frank Zappa

  14. 14
    Langston Hughes

    “Life is for the living.
    Death is for the dead.
    Let life be like music. 
    And death a note unsaid.” ― Langston Hughes, The Collected Poems

  15. 15
    Kurt Vonnegut

    “If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
    THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
    FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
    WAS MUSIC” ― kurt vonnegut

  16. 16
    Ludwig van Beethoven

    “Music is … A higher revelation than all Wisdom & Philosophy” ― Ludwig van Beethoven

  17. 17
    Maya Angelou

    “Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances. ” ― Maya Angelou

  18. 18
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    “A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  19. 19
    Bob Dylan

    “Play it fuckin’ loud!” ― Bob Dylan

  20. 20
    Modest Mouse

    “Music is to the soul what words are to the mind.” ― Modest Mouse, Modest Mouse – Good News for People Who Love Bad News

  21. 21
    Lady Gaga

    “I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a Grammy, never have a hit song, and that he hoped I’d fail. I said to him, ‘Someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the fucking deli without hearing or seeing me.” ― Lady Gaga

  22. 22
    Bob Marley

    “I don’t stand for black man’s side, I don’t stand for white man’s side, I stand for God’s side.” ― Bob Marley

  23. 23
    Taylor Swift

    “Everybody has that point in their life where you hit a crossroads and you’ve had a bunch of bad days and there’s different ways you can deal with it and the way I dealt with it was I just turned completely to music.” ― Taylor Swift

  24. 24
    Edward Bulwer Lytton

    “Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies.” ― Edward Bulwer Lytton

  25. 25
    Suzanne Collins

    “Because when he sings…even the birds stop to listen.” ― Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

  26. 26
    Keith Richards

    “If you’re going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet.” ― Keith Richards, Keith Richards: In His Own Words

  27. 27
    Jonathan Safran Foer

    “Songs are as sad as the listener.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

  28. 28
    Bob Dylan

    “A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do.” ― Bob Dylan

  29. 29
    Johnny Depp

    “Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t.” ― Johnny Depp

  30. 30
    Leo Tolstoy

    “A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.” ― Leo Tolstoy, Family Happiness

  31. 31
    Maggie Stiefvater

    “You’re like a song that I heard when I was a little kid but forgot I knew until I heard it again.” ― Maggie Stiefvater, Lament: The Faerie Queen’s Deception

  32. 32
    Mary Gaitskill

    “My ambition was to live like music.” ― Mary Gaitskill

  33. 33
    Bob Dylan

    “I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me.” ― Bob Dylan

  34. 34
    Carson McCullers

    “Next to music, beer was best.” ― Carson McCullers, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

  35. 35
    Jerry Seinfeld

    “Somebody just gave me a shower radio. Thanks a lot. Do you really want music in the shower? I guess there’s no better place to dance than a slick surface next to a glass door.” ― Jerry Seinfeld

  36. 36
    Hans Christian Andersen

    “Where words fail, music speaks.” ― Hans Christian Andersen

  37. 37
    Gerard Way

    “If you look in the mirror and don’t like what you see, you can find out first hand what it’s like to be me.” ― Gerard Way

  38. 38
    Lester Bangs

    “The first mistake of art is to assume that it’s serious.” ― Lester Bangs

  39. 39
    Aaron Copland

    “To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.” ― Aaron Copland

  40. 40
    Tori Amos

    “Girls you’ve gotta know when it’s time to turn the page.” ― Tori Amos, Tori Amos: From the Choirgirl Hotel

  41. 41
    Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    “Music is the universal language of mankind.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  42. 42
    Tom Waits

    “My kids are starting to notice I’m a little different from the other dads. “Why don’t you have a straight job like everyone else?” they asked me the other day. 

    I told them this story: 
    In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, “Look at me…I’m tall, and I’m straight, and I’m handsome. Look at you…you’re all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you.” And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, “Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest.” So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day.” ― Tom Waits

  43. 43
    Edith Sitwell

    “My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.” ― Edith Sitwell

  44. 44
    C. JoyBell C.

    “You’ve got this life and while you’ve got it, you’d better kiss like you only have one moment, try to hold someone’s hand like you will never get another chance to, look into people’s eyes like they’re the last you’ll ever see, watch someone sleeping like there’s no time left, jump if you feel like jumping, run if you feel like running, play music in your head when there is none, and eat cake like it’s the only one left in the world!” ― C. JoyBell C.

  45. 45
    Osho

    “To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.” ― Osho

  46. 46
    Leonard Bernstein

    “Music . . . can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.” ― Leonard Bernstein

  47. 47
    Tom Waits

    “I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.” ― Tom Waits

  48. 48
    Leopold Stokowski

    “A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.” ― Leopold Stokowski

  49. 49
    Emma Goldman

    “If I can’t dance to it, it’s not my revolution.” ― Emma Goldman

  50. 50
    Nora Roberts

    “Magic exists. Who can doubt it, when there are rainbows and wildflowers, the music of the wind and the silence of the stars? Anyone who has loved has been touched by magic. It is such a simple and such an extraordinary part of the lives we live.” ― Nora Roberts

  51. 51
    Lady Gaga

    “When you make music or write or create, it’s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you’re writing about at the time. ” ― Lady Gaga

  52. 52
    Stephen Chbosky

    “Asleep by the Smiths
    Vapour Trail by Ride
    Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel
    A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum
    Dear Prudence by the Beatles
    Gypsy by Suzanne Vega
    Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues
    Daydream by Smashing Pumpkins
    Dusk by Genesis (before Phil Collins was even in the band!)
    MLK by U2
    Blackbird by the Beatles
    Landslide by Fleetwood Mac
    Asleep by the Smiths (again!)

    -Charlie’s mixtape” ― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

  53. 53
    Sarah J. Maas

    “I like music,” she said slowly, “because when I hear it, I . . . I lose myself within myself, if that makes any sense. I become empty and full all at once, and I can feel the whole earth roiling around me. When I play. I’m not . . . for once, I’m not destroying, I’m creating.” ― Sarah J. Maas, Throne of Glass

  54. 54
    Robert Browning

    “Who hears music, feels his solitude
    Peopled at once.” ― Robert Browning, The complete poetical works of Browning

  55. 55
    Woody Allen

    “I just can’t listen to any more Wagner, you know…I’m starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.” ― Woody Allen

  56. 56
    Steve Maraboli

    “Live your truth. Express your love. Share your enthusiasm. Take action towards your dreams. Walk your talk. Dance and sing to your music. Embrace your blessings. Make today worth remembering.” ― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

  57. 57
    Paul McCartney

    “I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird.” ― Paul McCartney

  58. 58
    Rachel Cohn

    “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have a feeling that they can’t hide.” ― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist

  59. 59
    Lana Del Rey

    “I was always an unusual girl.
    My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean.” ― Lana Del Rey

  60. 60
    John Lennon

    “If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.” ― John Lennon

  61. 61
    Frank Zappa

    “Information is not knowledge.
    Knowledge is not wisdom.
    Wisdom is not truth.
    Truth is not beauty.
    Beauty is not love.
    Love is not music.
    Music is THE BEST.” ― Frank Zappa

  62. 62
    Jess C Scott

    “A fit, healthy body—that is the best fashion statement” ― Jess C Scott

  63. 63
    Lana Del Rey

    “Who are you?
    Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies?
    Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them?
    I have. I am fucking crazy.
    But I am free.” ― Lana Del Rey

  64. 64
    John Lennon

    “For those of you in the cheap seats I’d like ya to clap your hands to this one; the rest of you can just rattle your jewelry!” ― John Lennon

  65. 65
    Frank Zappa

    “Jazz isn’t dead. It just smells funny.” ― Frank Zappa

  66. 66
    Mark Hoppus

    “the past is only the future with the lights on.” ― Mark Hoppus, Blink 182

  67. 67
    Hannah Harrington

    “He took his pain and turned it into something beautiful. Into something that people connect to. And that’s what good music does. It speaks to you. It changes you.” ― Hannah Harrington, Saving June

  68. 68
    Bob Dylan

    “And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking.” ― Bob Dylan

  69. 69
    Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

    “The music is not in the notes,
    but in the silence between.” ― Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

  70. 70
    John Barrowman

    “I’ve always thought people would find a lot more pleasure in their routines if they burst into song at significant moments.” ― John Barrowman

  71. 71
    Arthur O’Shaughnessy

    “We are the music-makers,
    And we are the dreamers of dreams,
    Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
    And sitting by desolate streams.
    World-losers and world-forsakers,
    Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
    Yet we are the movers and shakers,
    Of the world forever, it seems.” ― Arthur O’Shaughnessy, Poems of Arthur O’Shaughnessy

  72. 72
    Alphonse de Lamartine

    “Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends.” ― Alphonse de Lamartine

  73. 73
    Gerard Way

    “Would you destroy Something perfect in order to make it beautiful?” ― Gerard Way

  74. 74
    Ellen DeGeneres

    “Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you’ve never sung before, and you realize you’ve never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, ‘Life in the Fast Lane?’ That’s what they’re saying right there? You think, ‘why have I been singing ‘wipe in the vaseline?’ how many people have heard me sing ‘wipe in the vaseline?’ I am an idiot.” ― Ellen DeGeneres, My Point… And I Do Have One

  75. 75
    Taylor Swift

    “So don’t you worry your pretty little mind because people throw rocks at things that shine. [Ours]” ― Taylor Swift

  76. 76
    Douglas Adams

    “Beethoven tells you what it’s like to be Beethoven and Mozart tells you what it’s like to be human. Bach tells you what it’s like to be the universe.” ― Douglas Adams

  77. 77
    Tupac Shakur

    “I’m not saying I’m gonna change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.” ― Tupac Shakur

  78. 78
    Chuck Palahniuk

    “The first step – especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money – the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.” ― Chuck Palahniuk

  79. 79
    Emilie Autumn

    “Perfume was first created to mask the stench of foul and offensive odors…
    Spices and bold flavorings were created to mask the taste of putrid and rotting meat…
    What then was music created for?
    Was it to drown out the voices of others, or the voices within ourselves?
    I think I know.” ― Emilie Autumn, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

  80. 80
    Oscar Wilde

    “Music makes one feel so romantic – at least it always gets on one’s nerves – which is the same thing nowadays.” ― Oscar Wilde

  81. 81
    Rob Sheffield

    “When we die, we will turn into songs, and we will hear each other and remember each other.” ― Rob Sheffield, Love Is a Mix Tape

  82. 82
    Sir James Barrie

    “If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.” ― Sir James Barrie, Peter Pan

  83. 83
    Paul McCartney

    “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, Tomorrow I’ll miss you.” ― Paul McCartney

  84. 84
    Tom Waits

    “There ain’t no devil, only God when he’s drunk.” ― Tom Waits

  85. 85
    Taylor Swift

    “The only one who’s got enough of me to break my heart.” ― Taylor Swift, Taylor Swift: Piano Play-Along Volume 95

  86. 86
    Marilyn Manson

    “Music is the strongest form of magic.” ― Marilyn Manson

  87. 87
    Jess C Scott

    “V-Day…if you need this one day in a year to show everyone else you truly care for “your loved one” I think it’s quite stupid. I hate this commercialism. It’s all artificial, and has nothing to do with real love.” ― Jess C Scott, EyeLeash: A Blog Novel

  88. 88
    Frank Zappa

    “Definition of rock journalism: People who can’t write, doing interviews with people who can’t think, in order to prepare articles for people who can’t read.” ― Frank Zappa, The Real Frank Zappa Book

  89. 89
    Lao Tzu

    “Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.” ― Lao Tzu

  90. 90
    Robert Fripp

    “Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence.” ― Robert Fripp

  91. 91
    Nick Hornby

    “What came first – the music or the misery? Did I listen to the music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to the music? Do all those records turn you into a melancholy person?” ― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

  92. 92
    Kahlil Gibran

    “Music is the language of the spirit. It opens the secret of life bringing peace, abolishing strife.” ― Kahlil Gibran

  93. 93
    Daniel Keyes

    “Thank God for books and music and things I can think about.” ― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon

  94. 94
    Donald Miller

    “I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Bagdad Theater in Portland one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes, and he never opened his eyes.
    After that I liked jazz music.
    Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.
    I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened.” ― Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

  95. 95
    Nick Hornby

    “I love the relationship that anyone has with music … because there’s something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. … It’s the best part of us probably …” ― Nick Hornby, Songbook

  96. 96
    Maria von Trapp

    “Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.” ― Maria von Trapp

  97. 97
    Emilie Autumn

    “Studies show:
    Intelligent girls are more depressed
    Because they know
    What the world is really like
    Don’t think for a beat it makes it better
    When you sit her down and tell her
    Everything gonna be all right
    She knows in society she either is
    A devil or an angel with no in between
    She speaks in the third person
    So she can forget that she’s me” ― Emilie Autumn

  98. 98
    Paul McCartney

    “When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
    speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
    And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
    speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
    Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
    Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.
    And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
    there will be an answer, let it be.
    For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
    there will be an answer. let it be.
    Let it be, let it be, …..
    And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
    shine until tomorrow, let it be.
    I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
    speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
    Let it be, let it be, …..” ― Paul McCartney

  99. 99
    Jimi Hendrix

    “Who are you to judge the life i live
    i know i’m not perfect and i don’t live to be.
    but before you start pointing fingers
    make sure your hands are clean.” ― Jimi Hendrix

  100. 100
    Jess C Scott

    “My head’ll explode if I continue with this escapism.” ― Jess C Scott, EyeLeash: A Blog Novel

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