237 Inspirational Quotes for Musicians to Fuel Your Creative Journey

"Musicians want to be the loud voice for so many quiet hearts."

- Billy Joel

"Be your own artist, and always be confident in what you're doing. If you're not going to be confident, you might as well not be doing it."

- Aretha Franklin

"I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others."

- James Taylor

"The true beauty of music is that it connects people. It carries a message, and we, the musicians, are the messengers."

- Roy Ayers

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"If you write great songs with meaning and emotion, they will last forever because songs are the key to everything."

- Elton John

"Without music, life would be a mistake."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent"

- Victor Hugo

"People haven't always been there for me but music always has."

- Taylor Swift

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

- Victor Hugo

"Where words leave off, music begins."

- Heinrich Heine

"Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn."

- Charlie Parker

"Where words fail, music speaks."

- Hans Christian Andersen

"Music is life itself."

- Louis Armstrong

"To play without passion is inexcusable!"

- Ludwig van Beethoven

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything."

- Plato

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

- Sergei Rachmaninov

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

- Jimi Hendrix

"A creative artist works on his next composition because he was not satisfied with his previous one."

- Dmitri Shostakovich

"The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between."

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"The wise musicians are those who play what they can master."

- Duke Ellington

"A musician should only sound like what they do, and no two musicians sound the same. It's an individual-feel thing, you know?"

- Dave Grohl

"Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them."

- Louis Armstrong

"The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with."

- Bruce Springsteen

"Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me."

- Eddie van Halen

"Music has healing power. It has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours."

- Elton John

"Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway."

- Emory Austin

"Music is an outburst of the soul."

- Frederick Delius

"I adore art… when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear."

- Giuseppe Verdi

"Music is the universal language of mankind."

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Music is the tool to express life —and all that makes a difference."

- Herbie Hancock

"Without music, life would be a blank to me."

- Jane Austen

"Music is a weapon in the war against unhappiness."

- Jason Mraz

"Music is the moonlight in the gloomy night of life."

- Jean Paul Friedrich Richter

"Music is my religion."

- Jimi Hendrix

"Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can't."

- Johnny Depp

"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 Ayotte

"Music is the shorthand of emotion."

- Leo Tolstoy

"Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable."

- Leonard Bernstein

"Music is the emotional life of most people."

- Leonard Cohen

"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence."

- Leopold Stokowski

"Music comes to me more readily than words."

- Ludwig van Beethoven

"Music —what a powerful instrument, what a mighty weapon!"

- Maria August von Trapp

"Music is the strongest form of magic."

- Marilyn Manson

"The only love affair I have ever had was with music."

- Maurice Ravel

"Music should be your escape."

- Missy Elliott

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

- Pablo Casals

"The easiest way to avoid wrong notes is to never open your mouth and sing. What a mistake that would be."

- Pete Seeger

"Music is powerful. As people listen to it, they can be affected. They respond."

- Ray Charles

"Music expresses feeling and thought, without language; it was below and before speech, and it is above and beyond all words."

- Robert G. Ingersoll

"To send light into the darkness of men's hearts —such is the duty of the artist."

- Robert Schumann

"I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing."

- William James

"The music is not in the notes, but in the silence in between."

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"It was my 16th birthday - my mom and dad gave me my Goya classical guitar that day. I sat down, wrote this song, and I just knew that that was the only thing I could ever really do - write songs and sing them to people."

- Stevie Nicks

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

- Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy

"The only truth is music."

- Jack Kerouac

"Music is ... A higher revelation than all Wisdom & Philosophy"

- Ludwig van Beethoven

"Most people die with their music still locked up inside them."

- Benjamin Disraeli

"We're musicians. We make music for a living. It's that simple. Nothing else matters."

- Eddie van Halen

"I decided long ago never to walk in anyone's shadow; if I fail, or if I succeed at least I did as I believe."

- Whitney Houston

"You build on failure. Use it as a stepping stone and close the door on the past. Don't try to forget the mistakes, but don't dwell on it."

- Johnny Cash

"Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets, for it and knowledge can raise men to the divine."

- Ludwig van Beethoven

"I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well."

- J.S. Bach

"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

"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."

- Pablo Picasso

"If you're going to be a musician, you must be interested in new things all the time."

- André Previn

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

- Bob Marley

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

- Maya Angelou

"Some people have lives; some people have music."

- John Green

"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

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

- Aldous Huxley

"Music can change the world."

- Ludwig van Beethoven

"And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person."

- Stephen Chbosky

"Forgiveness is the needle that knows how to mend."

- American singer-songwriter

"Music is well said to be the speech of angels."

- Thomas Carlyle

"When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there."

- George Harrison

"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."

- William Shakespeare

"People have to go through trials and tribulations to get where they at. Do your thing - continue to rock it - because obviously, God wants you here."

- Kendrick Lamar

"I feel like this: Whatever is in your path and in your heart, you need to do."

- J. Cole

"I don't have to do things just to please people. It's okay to do what I love because what I love, my fans love. And they're really the only ones that should matter."

- Nicki Minaj

"Every bad situation is a blues song waiting to happen."

- Amy Winehouse

"Just keep going. You never know how far you can go."

- Gunna

"Every time I step on stage an' see all of the lights or hear fans singing the words to my songs ,it's a surreal moment for me."

- A Boogie wit da Hoodie

"I put so much pressure on myself. I'm my toughest critic. I always push myself to go harder than I did last time."

- Polo G

"Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It's a black wall. It's a thief."

- Dave Grohl

"When you feel sad, it's okay. It's not the end of the world. Everyone has those days when you doubt yourself, and when you feel like everything you do sucks, but then there's those days when you feel like Superman. It's just the balance of the world. I just write to feel better."

- Mac Miller

"Sometimes it's the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination."

- Drake

"If you really want something you can figure out how to make it happen."

- Cher

"Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results."

- Willie Nelson

"People just see the shine. They don't see the grind, the bags under my eyes. It was a lot of grinding, setbacks... I ain't finna let nothing stop me. Wherever I stop at, I already know who I am."

- Kodak Black

"Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art."

- Claude Debussy

"I would rather write 10,000 notes than a single letter of the alphabet."

- Ludwig van Beethoven

"If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow."

- Beyoncé

"The goal is to try and make the perfect song. Which of course will never happen."

- Chris Martin

"You can't knock on opportunity's door and not be ready."

- Bruno Mars

"One thing I've learned is that I'm not the owner of my talent; I'm the manager of it."

- Madonna

"You can do anything that you set your mind to."

- Eminem

"I don't want to make money; I want to make a difference."

- Lady Gaga

"A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place."

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings."

- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

"I don't know what I'm doing. And if you don't know what to do, there's actually a chance of doing something new. As long as you know what you're doing, nothing much of interest is going to happen."

- Philip Glass

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become."

- Steve Jobs

"You don't have to be constantly relevant to be successful."

- Adele

"Obsess over the quality of what you produce, even if this means missing opportunities in the short term."

- Cal Newport

"To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time."

- Leonard Bernstein

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

- Maya Angelou

"I win or I learn, but I never lose."

- Marie Forleo

"I've discovered that if I cling to the notion that something's not possible, I'm arguing in favor of limitation. And if I argue for my limitations, I get to keep them."

- Gay Hendrix

"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."

- Dale Carnegie

"People can copy skills, expertise, and knowledge, which are all replicable with enough time and effort. What's not replicable is who you truly are—your style, your personality, your sense of activism, and your unique way of finding creative solutions to complicated problems."

- Paul Jarvis

"Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid."

- Langston Hughes

"Ah, music, he said, wiping his eyes. A magic beyond all we do here!"

- J.K. Rowling

"There are two means of refuge from the misery of life —music and cats."

- Albert Schweitzer

"Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances."

- Maya Angelou

"Wake up, live your life and sing the melody of your soul."

- Amit Ray

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

- Confucius

"Music is the soundtrack of your life."

- Dick Clark

"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, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit and never dies."

- Edward Bulwer-Lytton

"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

"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

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

- George Eliot

"You can cage the singer but not the song."

- Harry Belafonte

"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest of times, and to the latest."

- Henry David Thoreau

"I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it."

- Igor Stravinsky

"How is it that music can, without words, evoke our laughter, our fears, our highest aspirations?"

- Jane Swan

"Music is a safe kind of high."

- Jimi Hendrix

"Life and love go on, let the music play."

- Johnny Cash

"Music is the only thing I've ever known that doesn't have any rules at all."

- Josh Homme

"My music isn't just music —its medicine."

- Kanye West

"Music in the soul can be heard by the universe."

- Lao Tzu

"As long as we live, there is never enough singing."

- Martin Luther

"Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world."

- Martin Luther

"My ambition was to live like music."

- Mary Gaitskill

"He who sings frightens away his ills."

- Miguel de Cervantes

"Music is my higher power"

- Oliver James

"Music sounds different to the one who plays it. It is the musician's curse."

- Patrick Rothfuss

"If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together."

- Richard Nixon

"Life is one grand, sweet song so start the music."

- Ronald Reagan

"If you want to love others, I think you should love yourself first."

- Bts Rm

"You just do what you can and you have as much fun as possible."

- Frank Ocean

"There was no one near to confuse me, so I was forced to become original."

- Franz Joseph Haydn

"Imagination creates reality."

- Richard Wagner

"What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."

- Bob Dylan

"Keep in mind that I'm an artist, and I'm sensitive about my shit."

- Erykah Badu

"It's not how much you have that makes people look up to you, it's who you are."

- "Macho Man" Randy Savage

"Do less, and do it well."

- Will Guidara

"An idea is a point of departure and no more. As soon as you elaborate it, it becomes transformed by thought."

- Pablo Picasso

"Do the thing and you will have the power."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Don't rush your most important work. Allow it instead to unfold along a sustainable timeline, with variations in intensity, in settings conducive to brilliance."

- Cal Newport

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible."

- Frank Zappa

"None but ourselves can free our minds."

- Bob Marley

"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once."

- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Life, he realize, was much like a song. In the beginning there is mystery, in the end there is confirmation, but it's in the middle where all the emotion resides to make the whole thing worthwhile."

- Nicholas Sparks

"If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week."

- Charles Darwin

"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

"Music comes from a place we don't know."

- Chris Martin

"I think there is a song out there to describe just about any situation."

- Criss Jami

"I merely took the energy it takes to pour and wrote some blues."

- Duke Ellington

"The musician is perhaps the most modest of animals, but he is also the proudest."

- Erik Satie

"If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it's not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That's why it's your path."

- Joseph Campbell

"Your work is something you do, not who you are."

- Austin Kleon

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

- Haruki Murakami

"If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing."

- J.M. Barrie

"Music is the art of the prophets and the gift of God."

- Martin Luther

"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

"I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things."

- Tom Waits

"You never know the plan. You never know what's going to happen. We are not even promised tomorrow. I just try to focus on one day at a time."

- Morgan Wallen

"In order to find yourself, who you really are, you got to be with yourself; you got to hang out with yourself."

- Post Malone

"And if you don't believe the sun will rise, stand alone and greet the coming night in the last remaining light."

- Chris Cornell

"My dad is Dominican, my mother's Puerto Rican, and I got into bachata at the age of 10 or 11. When I started listening, it had a reputation for being music for hick people. I thought that had to be changed. I was born and raised in the Bronx, and I knew you make something cool if you're cool."

- Romeo Santos

"You gotta water your plants. Nobody can water them for you."

- DJ Khaled

"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring."

- David Bowie

"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."

- John Lennon

"I don't have any control over what actually happens except for that I have full control over my will for myself, my intention, and why I'm there. That's all that matters."

- SZA

"I just find myself happy with the simple things. Appreciating the blessings God gave me."

- DMX

"Mournful and yet grand is the destiny of the artist."

- Franz Liszt

"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."

- John Cage

"Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people."

- Prince

"I'm trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It's so easy to get turned."

- Elvis Presley

"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted."

- John Lennon

"Let every man abide in the calling wherein he is called and his work will be as sacred as the work of the ministry. It is not what a man does that determines whether his work is sacred or secular, it is why he does it."

- A.W. Tozer

"It's not what you know, it's how you convey it to people."

- Morgan Housel

"Business art is the step that comes after Art. I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist. After I did the thing called 'art' or whatever it's called, I went into business art. I wanted to be an Art Businessman or a Business Artist. Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art."

- Andy Warhol

"If knowledge is power, knowing what we don't know is wisdom."

- Adam Grant

"Define your identity in terms of values, not opinions. It's easier to avoid getting stuck to your past beliefs if you don't become attached to them as part of your present self-concept. See yourself as someone who values curiosity, learning, mental flexibility, and searching for knowledge."

- Adam Grant

"Failure—not just the risk of failure—is the one thing that all entrepreneurs have in common."

- Michael Hyatt

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words."

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Why do beautiful songs make you sad?' 'Because they aren't true.' 'Never?' 'Nothing is beautiful and true."

- Jonathan Safran Foer

"If you were music, I would listen to you ceaselessly, and my low spirits would brighten up."

- Anna Akhmatova

"Music is always changing and the changes are unpredictable."

- Billy Sheehan

"Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up."

- H.C. Andersen

"I believe that a person's taste in music tells you a lot about them. In some cases, it tells you everything you need to know."

- Leila Sales

"If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know."

- Louis Armstrong

"Philosophy is the highest music."

- Plato

"Without loyalty, you won't accomplish anything."

- YoungBoy Never Broke Again

"I believe nothing happens by mistake. You know, the universe has a divine plan. That sounds dramatic."

- Lana Del Rey

"Today or any day that phone may ring and bring good news."

- Ethel Waters

"I hold grudges, but I can't hate nobody; that's not my nature."

- The Notorious B.I.G.

"I can't perform without the mask or be seen without it on stage, or else it'll distract from the whole persona."

- MF Doom

"You pick up some fans and a handful of haters along the way."

- Bruno Mars

"I'm really looking forward to seeing what life brings to me."

- Rihanna

"I believe everyone should be equal, and we should all love and support each other and express ourselves the way we want to express ourselves and be whoever we want. That's my motto."

- Melanie Martinez

"Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better."

- Henry Rollins

"Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them."

- Bob Dylan

"You really don't find too many good people. You really don't. Keep them around."

- Playboi Carti

"True wealth is not of the pocket, but of the heart and of the mind."

- Kevin Gates

"I feel like whatever is meant is meant. I feel like this is already written."

- Lil Baby

"It's not just about being sexy, it's about being confident and me being confident in my sexuality."

- Megan Thee Stallion

"And when the day arrives I'll become the sky and I'll become the sea and the sea will come to kiss me for I am going home. Nothing can stop me now."

- Trent Reznor

"Alone, we can affect a few. But together, we can change the world."

- Jen Hatmaker

"No matter what happens in life, be good to people. Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind."

- Taylor Swift

"Profitable art is the product of the creator and the creator alone. Profitable products, on the other hand, are the joint vision of the creator and their buyers."

- John D. Saunders

"An entrepreneur is someone who sees a problem and risks time, money, reputation, or some other asset to deliver a solution for gain."

- Michael Hyatt

"If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more: 'Tis not so sweet now as it was before. O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou, That, notwithstanding thy capacity Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there, Of what validity and pitch soe'er, But falls into abatement and low price, Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy That it alone is high fantastical."

- William Shakespeare

"People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands - literally thousands - of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss."

- Nick Hornby

"Do it again on the next verse and people think you meant it."

- Chet Atkins

"My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence."

- Edith Sitwell

"If I ever found a place where I belonged, that in itself would be an identity crisis to me."

- Mitski

"I'm a mirror. If you're cool with me, I'm cool with you, and the exchange starts. What you see is what you reflect. If you don't like what you see, then you've done something. If I'm standoffish, that's because you are."

- Jay-Z

"I know how it feels to be a woman because I am a woman. And I won't be classified as just a man."

- Pete Townshend

"A lot of people know me, but they don't know me well."

- NAVY

"The reason I made my stage name Kali Uchis is because it's still me in the sense that, my dad called me 'Kali Uchis' my whole life. It's still something I've been called since I was a baby. It's still me."

- Kali Uchis

"I found the experience of falling in love or being in love was a death: a death of everything. You kind of watch yourself die in a wonderful way, and you experience for the briefest moment - if you see yourself for a moment through their eyes - everything you believed about yourself gone. In a death-and-rebirth sense."

- Hozier

"Blind faith in your leaders, or in anything, will get you killed."

- Bruce Springsteen

"Don't you know there ain't no devil, it's just god when he's drunk."

- Tom Waits

"It's no good pretending that any relationship has a future if your record collections disagree violently or if your favorite films wouldn't even speak to each other if they met at a party."

- Nick Hornby

"I'm just a musical prostitute, my dear."

- Freddie Mercury

"Of all the things I've lost I miss my mind the most."

- Ozzy Osbourne

"I am not reclusive. I just have a private life."

- Enya

"A gentleman is someone who knows how to play the banjo and doesn't."

- Mark Twain

"The Joker is my favorite villain of all time: You don't know his past; you just know what his plans are."

- The Weeknd

"If a girl have beef with me, she gon' have beef with me forever."

- Cardi B

"I want to be a vampire. They're the coolest monsters."

- Gerard Way

"Gay people are made and not born."

- Lemmy