Inspiring Words: A Collection of Quotes from Music Legends

"Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents."

- Ludwig van Beethoven

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

- Eminem

"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 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

"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

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

- James Taylor

"People want to see musicians sing things that come from their own mind and own heart in real time, responding to the moment for them."

- John Mayer

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

- Pablo Casals

"Dream On, Dream On, Dream On Dream until your dreams come true."

- Aerosmith

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

- Dmitri Shostakovich

"Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal."

- Igor Stravinsky

"If you play music with passion and love and honesty, then it will nourish your soul, heal your wounds and make your life worth living. Music is its own reward."

- Sting

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

- Bono

"Jazz stands for freedom. It's supposed to be the voice of freedom: Get out there and improvise, and take chances, and don't be a perfectionist - leave that to the classical musicians."

- Dave Brubeck

"Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit."

- John Denver

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

- Elton John

"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

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

- Roy Ayers

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

- Lady Gaga

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

- Plato

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

- Billy Joel

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

- Louis Armstrong

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

- Robert Schumann

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

- Bob Marley

"It's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do."

- Marcus Miller

"Just as Jesus created wine from water, we humans are capable of transmuting emotion into music."

- Carlos Santana

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

- Taylor Swift

"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

"As a rock star, I have two instincts, I want to have fun, and I want to change the world. I have a chance to do both."

- Bono

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

- Beyoncé

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

- Madonna

"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

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

- Prince

"The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you."

- BB King

"I want them to come away with discovering the music inside them. And not thinking about themselves as jazz musicians, but thinking about themselves as good human beings, striving to be a great person and maybe they'll become a great musician."

- Charlie Haden

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

- Bruno Mars

"The great musicians are those who can reach people, who can make people feel something."

- Sam Rivers

"Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue."

- Plato

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

- J.S. Bach

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

- Elvis Presley

"Life is what happens when you’re making other plans."

- John Lennon

"Though I still have no semblance of a life outside of Nine Inch Nails at the moment, I realize my goals have gone from getting a record deal or selling another record to being a better person, more well-rounded, having friends, having a relationship with somebody."

- Trent Reznor

"Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Musicians from the beginning of time have been there to express the mood and the musical feelings in the air for whatever's going on in that particular culture. It's the greatest joy as a musician to be able to translate that, be part of something and watch the scenery around you."

- Trey Anastasio

"Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted."

- John Lennon

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

- Thomas Carlyle

"Jazz is smooth and cool. Jazz is rage. Jazz flows like water. Jazz never seems to begin or end. Jazz isn't methodical, but jazz isn't messy either. Jazz is a conversation, a give and take. Jazz is the connection and communication between musicians. Jazz is abandon."

- Nat Wolff

"In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first."

- Jimi Hendrix

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

- Chris Martin

"The truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away."

- Elvis Presley

"Music is by far the most wonderful method we have to remind us each day of the power of personal accomplishment."

- Chris S. Salazar

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

- Eddie Van Halen

"I started imagining this whole different world. It was a society of musicians, a family I hoped I could belong to one day."

- Quincy Jones

"At the risk of sounding hopelessly romantic, love is the key element. I really love to play with different musicians who come from different cultural backgrounds."

- John McLaughlin

"Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind."

- Mick Jagger

"All musicians are potential band leaders."

- Thelonious Monk

"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."

- Igor Stravinsky

"The hardest thing with musicians is getting them not to play."

- Prince

"Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast, to soften rocks or bend a knotted oak."

- William Congreve

"Because my musical training has been limited, I've never been restricted by what technical musicians might call a song."

- Neil Diamond

"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

"It seems like bluegrass people have more great stories to tell than other musicians."

- Dan Fogelberg

"Whenever I felt happy about having discovered something, the first encounter, not only with the public, with other musicians, with specialists, etc, was that they rejected it."

- Karlheinz Stockhausen

"All musicians are subconsciously mathematicians."

- Thelonious Monk

"There's a lot of integrity with musicians; you really still aspire to grow, and be great, to be the best version of yourself you can be."

- Sheryl Crow

"I know a lot of people who are struggling musicians; it's a hard life, and I've risked being that. The rewards are tremendous now that I've made it, I thank God every day. But I put it all on the line for it."

- Kid Rock

"I think performers are all show-offs anyway, especially musicians. Unless you show off, you're not going to get noticed."

- Elton John

"I wouldn't like to be in movies. Movie people are strange. They live a different life than musicians do."

- Stevie Nicks

"When a lot of musicians change styles, their songwriting suffers because they want to be different."

- Noel Gallagher

"I am constantly amazed at the musicians that are able to do the same thing over and over for 20 or more years. That would drive me absolutely insane."

- Mike Patton

"I happen to think that computers are the most important thing to happen to musicians since the invention of cat-gut which was a long time ago."

- Robert Moog

"It has always seemed slightly uncomfortable, the idea of politicised musicians. Very few of them are clever enough to do it; if they're good at the political side, the music side suffers, and vice versa."

- Robert Smith

"I claimed identity as Jewish musicians for political reasons, because most of us were touring in Germany and, at this time, twelve years ago, there was a strong resurgence of Nazism in the places we were touring and part of that was on the music scene."

- Marc Ribot

"An entire generation of talented people - engineers, artists, scriptwriters, musicians, programmers - have been busy creating a whole new art form for us. The name of this new game is interactivity."

- Ralph H. Baer

"There are more bad musicians than there is bad music."

- Isaac Stern

"I think Paris smells not just sweet but melancholy and curious, sometimes sad but always enticing and seductive. She's a city for the all senses, for artists and writers and musicians and dreamers, for fantasies, for long walks and wine and lovers and, yes, for mysteries."

- M. J. Rose